Is one third of the settlement amount an average fee for a lawyer to take in an auto accident case?
Saturday, June 19th, 2010 at
12:27 am
tracielee_1980 asked:
I was injured in an auto accident recently. I spoke to a lawyer and he said he would take my case and would charge me one third of whatever settlement he is able to get me. I have tried contacting other buy prescription drugs online without prescription lawyers to make sure I’m getting the best deal possible, but so far no one else has gotten back to me.
Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
- Related posts on Accident Case
- Orlando Car Accident Lawyer James O. Cunningham | Accident …
- A first, MACT settles claim within 35 days | India Business News
- Important Matters to be Considered in Car Accidents « ugg gypsy …
that’s pretty standard. BUT, if it wasn’t a big, serious accident, a lot of times you can settle with the insurance company without an attorney and save a lot of $$
One third for a lawyer to take a case on contingency basis is pretty typical. You are not getting cheated in any way. Do understand that you usually still have to pay fees, like filing fees, copying fees, fee for serving the summon on defendants, etc.
You either have to pay the fees as you go, or if you win, the fees get deducted first, then your lawyer get one third and you get the rest. If you lose, you will still have to pay the fees to your lawyer.
Yes, it is a standard contingency fee. Some law firms want 1/3 if they settle and 40% if they have to go to trial.
The contingency can be any amount you and your lawyer agree upon. It is often determined by how risky the case is — in other words, since the lawyer won’t get paid if he loses, he should get a bigger percentage for a riskier case. Assuming that litigating the cases are comparable amounts of work, a case that’s a slam dunk winner should pay a smaller percentage, because there’s little risk that the lawyer will do all that work for nothing.
You’re following the best course. Shop your case around. And don’t ignore the lawyers who don’t get back to you — they may be implicitly telling you that they don’t think you have a good enough case for them to risk their work on.
Yes that sounds about right.
33 1/3 is the max amount in most states.