The phrases is most commonly used by injury attorneys that describe their fee in an injury case are as follows:
“contingent fee”
“we don’t get paid until you get paid”
“no results, no fee”
“no fee guarantee”
What do these phrases mean and do they properly or improperly describe a Michigan personal injury attorney fee?
In Michigan, the most common type of fee arrangement among injury accident attorneys is known legally as a contingent fee. A contingent fee is a fee that does not get charged unless or until there is a settlement or resolution to your injury claim. The attorney fee is contingent upon you obtaining a settlement or jury verdict. So, as many of the phrases above properly allude to, the lawyer will not get paid if you do not get paid.
How Much Will I Pay Out of My Settlement?
The standard contingent fee in Michigan is 1/3 or 33 1/3% of the net recovery. The net recovery is the gross recovery minus the costs of the case.
What Are The Possible Costs Associated With My Case?
The costs of the case will be anything that the attorney had to pay for during the pendency of the lawsuit. These include, but are not limited to, filing fees, fees for medical records and reports, copying costs, fees for expert testimony, deposition transcripts, court reporting fees and any other costs associated with the litigation process. It is difficult to estimate what the amount of costs for a case will be. They can vary greatly depending on how far your case gets towards trial. If your case goes to trial, there will likely be much more costs associated with the case. If your case is settled out of court prior to the lawsuit even being filed, the costs will likely be much smaller. Generally, when a case is complex, there will be a need for more expert testimony which can be very expensive resulting in more costs. Femminineo Law prides itself upon hiring the best experts which helps assure that our clients will get the best possible outcome.
A typical example that we use when illustrating how a Michigan contingent fee is calculated is the following:
If your lawsuit settled for $100,000 and there were $1000 in costs, the net result would be $99,000. The attorney fee would be 1/3 of $99,000 which will be an attorney fee of $33,000. The net result to you would be a tax free $66,000 (proceeds from personal injury lawsuit are non-taxable).
What If There’s No Payout on My Case or My Case Gets Dismissed? Will I Owe Anything?
At Femminineo law, we guarantee that if you do not recover, you will owe us nothing under any circumstances ever. If there is no payment made on your case, you will never be responsible for any of your costs, expert fees or any other costs associated with your case ever. It cost nothing to hire us, and our fees will be taken out of the net recovery in your case. So, literally everyone can afford us because we don’t get paid until you do.
Let the expert attorneys at Femminineo Law handle your injury matter. We never take a fee until you get paid first. Give us a call right now at 855.65.CRASH to get started.
