How Much Does a Personal Injury Case Cost?

Courthouse for trials including Personal Injury

This is a very important question when deciding to hire personal injury lawyer. Most injury lawyers handle cases on a contingent (percentage) basis. This means that they will get paid a percentage of your settlement or judgment. If the case does not settle and there is no money damages award, the lawyer will not get paid and the client will owe them nothing. Moreover, it is common practice for personal injury lawyers to pay all of the case expenses and only get reimbursed when or if the personal injury matter settles. Again, if there is no money recovery, the lawyer bears the loss of the case expenses and the client owes nothing. This is important because it can easily cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in various expenses in the serious personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit.

Clients often understand how the contingent percentage fee works but want to know what the standard percentages are. The rates can vary from firm to firm. However, somewhat standard rates are 1/3 if the case settles before suit, 40% if there is a settlement after suit is filed and through a trial and 45% if there is an appeal. These are the percentages the lawyer would receive in addition to the case expenses being reimbursed out of the client’s share.

By way of an example, if a client’s personal injury case settled for $2,000,000.00 after the suit is filed and there were $50,000.00 in expenses paid by the attorney, the client would receive $1,150,000.00 and the lawyer would receive a fee of $800,000.00 (40%) plus the $50,000.00 in reimbursable expenses.

For further information, contact Michael P. Fleming, an attorney with 30 years experience handling injury cases.