How injury claims against insurers work, and what it costs to hire a lawyer on contingency instead of handling one yourself
Sitting Down With a Contingency Firm? Five Questions to Ask Before You Sign
A retainer packet usually contains both the fee agreement and a separate authorization for medical records. Read the second one too, since it governs who can pull your file and for how long.
The paper comes out about forty minutes into the meeting, two or three pages, sometimes four, with the percentage in the first paragraph and everything that matters to you further down. Most people sign it in the room. That is understandable, because the injury is recent and the adjuster has already called twice, but the agreement governs a relationship that may run two years and dispose of the largest sum of money the household will see at once. A careful reader slows down at five specific places, asks a question at each, and writes the answer in the margin.
1. Ask who actually touches the file every week
The attorney across the table may be the person whose name is on the building, and that person may never read your medical records. Ask who drafts the demand letter, who talks to the adjuster, who calls you back when you leave a message on a Tuesday, and whether that person is an attorney, a paralegal, or a case manager. None of those answers is disqualifying, because a good paralegal handling records requests is faster and cheaper than an attorney doing the same work. What you want is the name, the title, and a direct line, recorded somewhere other than memory.
2. Ask how often the firm actually tries cases
Every firm that advertises says it is prepared to go to trial, and the insurer on the other side keeps its own quiet record of which ones do. Ask for a number: how many cases the office took to a verdict last year, in which counties, and who sat first chair. Ask what happens if your case is the one that does not settle, whether it is referred out to trial counsel, and what that referral does to the fee. A firm that settles almost everything can still be the right choice for a soft tissue claim. You simply want to know which kind of shop you are in.
3. Ask what happens to case costs if the claim loses
Fees and costs are separate things, and the confusion between them produces most of the unpleasant surprises at the end. Costs are the filing fee, the deposition transcripts, the records charges, the expert who reviews the imaging and the expert who testifies about it. Ask whether the firm advances them, whether you owe them back if the case produces nothing, and whether the fee percentage is calculated before or after costs come off the gross. That ordering question is worth real money on a mid-size settlement, and it is written plainly in the better agreements. The Internal Revenue Service is responsible for how the various components of a settlement are treated at tax time, which is a separate conversation worth having before the check clears.
4. Ask what it costs to leave
Clients change lawyers, often for reasons that have nothing to do with competence, and the agreement should say what that costs. Look for a clause about discharge, withdrawal, and what the firm claims if you terminate: a lien on the eventual recovery, an hourly reckoning of the work already done, or reimbursement of costs advanced. Ask what the hourly rate would be under that clause and what records the firm keeps to support it. Ask, too, what happens if the firm withdraws, which is the same question pointed the other direction. Knowing the exit terms before you sign is what makes the entry decision reversible.
5. Ask which clauses will move
More of the document is negotiable than most clients assume, though the headline percentage usually is not, at least not at the first meeting. Firms will more often adjust the tier at which the fee steps up if suit is filed, the treatment of costs against the gross, the requirement that you approve any settlement offer in writing, and the arbitration clause that sends fee disputes out of court. Ask which three clauses the firm has changed for other clients. The answer tells you both what is available and how the office responds to a client who reads carefully.
What to take out of the room
Ask for a copy before you sign, read it somewhere quiet, and come back the next morning with the marked-up page. A firm that welcomes that is telling you something useful about how it will handle the next two years, and most of them do welcome it, because clients who understand the arithmetic argue less at the end. The questions cost nothing and take twenty minutes.