The Fee Structure Used By Most Personal Injury Lawyers

Most personal injury lawyers charged make a point of charging their clients only a single fee, the contingency fee. Moreover, the lawyer does not seek to collect it until after the lawyer’s client has received the expected payment. That payment reflects the size of the award that the client has been won, as the result of either a settlement or a judgment.

Factors determining the size of the different contingency fees

Two factors determine the size of the contingency fee that a given lawyer will charge a specific client. As indicated above, the amount of money awarded to an injury lawyer’s client factors into the calculations made by a member of the legal profession, when he or she must determine what a given client should be charged. Still, another factor must also be considered.
That is the percentage of the awarded amount that the injury lawyer has the right to claim. Normally, personal injury lawyer in Sarnia will quote that percentage, when consulting with one of his or her prospective clients. Hence, the client should know ahead of time what percentage of any received compensation must be granted to the legal counsel, once that same compensation has been mailed out by the insurance company.

What are disbursement fees, and how do they fit into the picture?

Such fees can get charged to a client, even if that same client’s case did not come to a successful conclusion. In other words, a disbursement fee might be charged, regardless of the outcome for a given client’s case. Those charges get made to cover the costs of services performed by the hired injury lawyer.

What sorts of services are performed by personal injury lawyers?

In order to present a winning case, a lawyer needs good evidence. The lawyer’s effort to gather such evidence begins with the collection of documents. Those are official papers, such as the client’s medical records and the record filed by any police officer that came to the accident site.
In addition, the lawyer needs to investigate the claims made by the defendant, the person that caused the injury. Often, an injury lawyer will hire a private investigator to check on the veracity of such claims. If a client got injured at the time of a collision, the injury lawyer’s investigation might also include a re-construction of the accident. That would be done by a paid engineer.
If the case were to go to court, the court fees would have to be paid. The act of making that payment would be the lawyer’s job. Like all jobs, the person that will benefit from the job’s performance should pay for it. Lawyers also have to pay any expert witnesses that will be testifying on behalf of their clients. That expert might be a member of the medical profession. On the other hand the witness might come from another profession, such as the one that welcomes well-trained engineers into its ranks.