How Does a Personal Injury Attorney Get Paid?
If you were recently injured in an accident, you may be wondering what your options are with regard to a personal injury claim. You’ve likely heard it before, either from friends who have “made a bunch of money” from an injury or on cheesy TV commercials with lawyers telling you “you deserve compensation.” But, what does it really mean to file a personal injury claim? And, more importantly, how do the lawyers behind these claims get paid?
Transparency is the Name of the Game
At Wakefield Law, our primary goal is to be 100% transparent with our clients. That’s why we go to every effort to make sure that you know and understand what happens in a personal injury case before we get hired. Although every personal injury case is different, there is a basic trajectory that the majority of our cases follow:
You are injured in an accident, through no fault of your own. “Injury” can include any kind of physical or emotional damage that requires intervention, such as doctor’s visits, hospitalization, surgery, therapy, chiropractic care, etc.
You decide you want to learn about your options to receive compensation for your injuries, so you contact the experienced attorneys at Wakefield Law.
First, we will offer you a free, in depth consultation over the phone. We ask you to tell us about the accident, your injuries, and any treatment you have received so far as a result of your injuries.
Before we decide whether or not to take on your case, we may want to do some preliminary research about your situation. This may include asking you to send over any bills, notes, police reports and any other information you may have that is relevant to your accident. If there are insurance companies involved, we may reach out to them to develop a full picture of your potential claim.
Then, we will call you back and let you know what we think. Remember, up until this point, Wakefield Law has still not been engaged to represent you in your personal injury claim. However, we will give you our honest assessment and first impressions about your case, your options, and any potential problems we have uncovered. If your case is the kind of claim that we would like to take on, we will extend an offer to represent you at this time. If it is not something that we typically handle, we will either offer you a referral to other attorneys or give you our expert opinion that the case cannot be pursued.
If we make the offer to represent you, and you would like to move forward, we will send you an engagement letter for you to review and sign. Once you have signed the engagement letter, we have entered into an attorney-client relationship. You can take a look at our detailed blog post about what is included in our standard engagement letter here.
Once the engagement letter is signed, our experienced team will get to work. We will contact all necessary parties and gather all the evidence needed to assess the full value of your claim. If you are still receiving medical treatment, we will begin building our file in preparation, but we will wait until the majority of your treatment is completed before making a final demand for compensation to the responsible insurance company. This step is where the bulk of our work is done. We will track down all medical records, police reports, insurance filings, and any other evidence necessary to build your strongest case for compensation. Our team has been doing this for over thirty years, so we use our expertise and ability to fact-find, organize masses of paperwork, and build our best case, given the extent of your injuries and any other impacts, such as lost wages.
Once we have gathered all necessary information, we will put together a comprehensive, meticulously-supported demand package to send to the responsible party’s insurance company. This demand will detail the extent of your injuries, treatment, and losses, placing a total dollar figure on the compensation we believe you deserve.
Now comes negotiation. Insurance companies rarely accept a first demand, so our senior attorney will negotiate directly with the insurance company to come to an agreement on what they are willing to pay. Of course, you are the final decision-maker. Although our attorneys will advocate on your behalf, the ultimate decision about whether and when to accept an offer lies with you.
Hopefully, before too long, we have come to an agreement. The insurance company will cut a check and send it to our firm. We make sure that legitimate liens for medical bills and other outstanding invoices related to the accident are paid for, we take our percentage fee, and then you receive the remainder. That’s it!
Now to the Topic of Attorney Compensation
So, here’s where we get to talk about the big question: what do attorneys get out of this? You may expect that an attorney will charge you a high-dollar hourly rate to do all of this work. However, when it comes to personal injury cases, we don’t charge an hourly rate. Instead, we charge a percentage of any amount that we are able to collect on your behalf. We find this way of working with clients to be far more effective: we are able to invest more time and attention to detail on your claim. You don’t have to worry about paying anything out of pocket for us to begin working for you. And, in the last analysis, we are all on the same team.
The exact percentage, as well as how attorney compensation will work, is clearly laid out in your original engagement letter, and we take it into account when negotiating with insurance companies on your behalf.
Ready to Get Started?
If you were recently in an accident, but have been putting off meeting with an attorney for fear that it will cost too much or become too complicated, we hope this article has put your mind at ease. Not only will working with an experienced personal injury attorney greatly increase your chance of getting the best settlement offer, but you will also be able to have us take on the responsibility of keeping records and organizing paperwork. Our team will handle all that for you. We even try to help in ways that are peripheral to your personal injury claim. Is your car totaled? Are you having difficulty getting repairs or a rental car covered? We’ll step in with your insurance company to make sure you get what is required under your insurance contract. An accident is traumatic enough, you don’t have to deal with the aftermath alone. Give Wakefield Law a call at 703-771-9740 to learn how to get started.