personal injury lawyer feesThe most frequent source of disagreement between a personal injury lawyer and their client is how much taking on the case will cost. The good news is that you can save yourself from unnecessary misery when your personal injury case concludes by ensuring that all costs and expenses related to handling your case and your fee arrangement are made clear right from the start.

How To Manage New Bedford MA Personal Injury Lawyer Fee

Get Your Expenses and Fee Agreement In Writing

Never agree to verbal agreements as to who gets what once your personal injury case has been concluded. A written agreement makes things a lot easier and protects you from future disagreements with your lawyer. Most lawyers are wary of putting fee agreements in writing even though they are required to so by law.

Your written agreement should reflect all the details and arrangements you make with your lawyer. In addition, both you and your lawyer should sign the agreement. Costs that should be addressed in the agreement should include cost of carrying out negotiations and if need be, the personal injury lawsuit. Personal injury lawyers can run up costs without much thought and this might be create a financial problem for you because you will be the one responsible for settling the costs out of the settlement amount.

Agree On The Contingency Fee

Not many people are capable of raising the money needed to pay a New Bedford MA personal injury lawyer in advance. As a matter of fact, most people would find that paying a personal injury lawyer by the hour to be quite expensive.

Lawyers have therefore come up with an alternative way of charging for their services. They do not charge the client money before beginning a case and instead take a percentage of the client’s settlement fee. This sort of arrangement is what is popularly known as the contingency fee and it is beneficial to both the client and the lawyer.

However, as much as this contingency fee might sound like a lifesaver, it does not come cheap. When a lawyer decides to take up a contingency fee, it means that they are willing to take a risk by not asking for payment in advance. Most lawyers will charge a contingency fee of between 33-40% of the settlement amount. Sometimes a client might take home a much less amount of money than what the lawyer got after settling all expenses related to the case. The good news is that you can always negotiate the lawyer’s fee before beginning the case.

An Example Of A Contingency Fee

Let’s say that you sign an agreement with your lawyer and you both agree that the lawyer will get 33.3% of the settlement amount they get you. The lawyer will first charge you the costs they incurred processing your case and then take 33.3% of the settlement amount. Therefore if they manage to get a settlement of $10, 000, and incurred $1000 while processing your case, they will subtract $1, 000 from the settlement amount leaving you with $9, 000. From the remaining amount, they will subtract 33.3% which will leave you with $6, 000.

This might or might not be a fair amount to you but should you hire a New Bedford MA personal injury lawyer on a contingency fee basis? The answer is both yes and no. Here’s why.

If your claim is relatively big and the insurance company is only offering to pay you a token value or worse, no money at all, then it would probably be worth it to hire a lawyer based on a contingency fee.

If your claim is small, it might make more sense for you to take on the case yourself even if it means that you will have to go to a small claims court. The decision basically depends on whether the economics of your injury case make it worthwhile.

Hiring Personal Injury Lawyer in New Bedford, MA

Our personal injury lawyers in New Bedford investigate and settle a number of personal injuries including slip and falls, motorcycle accidents, wrongful death claims, bicycle accidents, car accidents and boating accidents among others. We seek to get you full monetary compensation including monies for pain and suffering.

Contact us today at 508-999-0800 or fill out our contact form for a free initial consultation.