The attorney’s fee structure normally reflects the fact that a personal injury lawyer asks each client to pay a contingency fee. The client’s payment gets delivered to the retained lawyer in the form of a check from the defendant’s insurance company. That check’s value should be equal to the compensation package that the insurance adjuster had promised the claimant/client.
Basic features of a contingency fee
A personal injury lawyer in London does not receive that fee until he or she has helped a client to win a compensation package or a court-ordered judgment. The lawyer’s fee equals a given percent of the funds that were won by the client. The lawyer and client agree on that percent before initiating their efforts at resolving a given dispute.
The fee could vary during the various phases of the claims process. It is usually 30% for help with the negotiations and settlement, and 40% for tasks that are part of the pre-trial procedures and the actual trial.
The lawyer’s expenses would get added to the agreed-upon cut from the compensation package or the court-ordered judgment.
• The filing fee would be one expense
• Any payment made to an expert witness would add to the lawyer’s expenses.
• The retained attorney would cover the costs for photocopying any written or printed materials.
• The attorney would pay the required fee, when obtaining a copy of the client’s medical records
• The postage fees would create yet another expense for the person that has been retained by the claimant.
There are a series of fees that must be covered during the discovery session:
—Charges linked to deposition
—Charge for transcription services
—Charges for creation of exhibits
Health care providers also deserve repayment of the money used to provide for treatment of injuries
The attorney arranges for that payment’s journey by snail mail to the client’s health care provider. No client should be paid twice for his or her injuries or other damages. That is why the health care provider expects to be repaid for coverage of the client’s/policyholder’s injuries.
Lawyers understand how to carry out that process of paying the health care provider. The typical accident victim may not understand the same aspect of the process that is used for repaying any provider of health insurance.
Not every personal injury attorney has chosen to pay the provider of health insurance coverage before taking his or her “cut.” For that reason, a smart claimant should ask any consulted lawyer about his or her structure, in relation to payments for any health care providers. That structure does affect the final size of whatever payment that must go to the waiting claimant, the person that is also the lawyer’s client.