A contingency fee is a type of payment to your lawyer that only occurs when you receive some form of monetary recovery in your case: your personal injury case is resolved or you win your case in court. In a contingency fee agreement, a client pays no fee until his lawyer obtains a favorable settlement or judgment. The commission in a contingency agreement is set as a percentage of the settlement or judgment obtained in a particular case. Alternatives to a contingency fee are a fixed-rate or hourly agreement.
No-win, no-fee personal injury lawyers are the most likely to face a client on a contingent basis. They do this because large corporate injury settlements or medical malpractice lawsuits can fetch prices that reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. In most personal injury cases, the services of an attorney are offered on a contingency fee basis, which means that the attorney's fees for representing the client will be deducted from the final personal injury settlement in the client's case or from the compensation for damages after a verdict. favorable, in the rare event that the client's case reaches the court trial.
Attorneys (as well as law students and paralegals) generally offer free services directly to clients who cannot afford a lawyer (indigent) or to organizations that work with that population. The lawyer will contact you when you receive the settlement check and should provide you with a detailed list of what you deduct from your settlement check to cover the attorney's fees, costs and expenses. If you change lawyers or choose to represent yourself, your original lawyer will have a lien for the fees and expenses incurred in the case prior to the change, and you may be able to sue both you (the former client) and the defendant for personal injury for failing to protect and comply with the lawyer's lien.
