What does it cost to hire an accident lawyer? What does it mean when you see ads that say no fee unless we win advertising throughout the industry, telephone, and website. Hi, i’m Ted Spaulding, an Atlanta personal injury lawyer here at the law firm of Boling Rice. I want to do this video because I see all the time, and I’m sure others do as well mainly television, but it’s all over the internet as well these ads to try to gain business by saying no fee unless we win, or similar type comments, and my opinion that is somewhat misleading. It’s not telling the whole truth, and quite frankly the bar requires lawyers to have a caveat when you state things like that that fully explains what’s meant by that because it can be misleading.
So, this ultimately gets to the question of what does it cost to hire an accident lawyer. There’s two charges, if you will, that are potentially at play. First is the expense for the attorney’s time. That is not charged on an hourly basis as it is on other areas of practice. It’s on a contingency fee, and typically here in Georgia that fee is a third, or 33 and a third percent of whatever is recovered before suit is filed, and then 40% after suit is filed whether it’s settled or you get a verdict in court. And obviously, the reason for the uptick there of about 7% because there’s a lot of turning point involved after suit is filed and before suit. Now that’s the contingency fee.
That’s the fee that you don’t owe if you don’t recover anything. So, the attorney I should say is taking that risk. That they lose their time and fee if they aren’t able to recover anything for the client. Now what is not being told is that there’s another set of expenses that are owed, and they’re called out of pocket expenses. This is what a law firm, and we do this as well, will pay for up front. So, the clients not having to pay money out of their pocket while they’re injured, and going through treatment to pursue the claim.
These are hard expenses, certified mailing expenses, getting medical records, filing the law suit, and the charge in court to do so. Deposition costs, hiring experts, all of those things. Firms, like ours, will cover those upfront so those aren’t out of pocket with the client, but they’re owed at the end of the case, and often times owed regardless of the outcomes. So, here’s where’s that’s tricky in saying no fee unless you win. Because a lot of firms will still require that the expenses that the firm fronted be reimbursed by the client regardless of the recovery. So, you’ve got to be careful with that.
You need to have a lawyer who is going to explain .. explain whether you are or not going to owe that at the end of the case in your particular situation, and keep you updated as you go along on what’s being spent. You don’t want any surprises at the end of the case where you finally find out oh we spent $50,000 in expenses You want to know as you go along why you’re spending money, why It’s important, be part of that decision process because it may ultimately be your money regardless of your outcome. So, we are always very upfront with that day one. Yes there are situations where if we were to lose the case. It doesn’t happen often for us, but when it does we require that expense to pay back, but it may be required to pay back, and that needs to be known. So, not totally genuine win it’s explained to people it’s not fee unless we win. That just attorney’s fees. So, be careful out there with those types of advertising. If you have any questions about your particular case, please feel free to reach out to me.
There’s two ways you that can do that. You can do that through our website at www.bolingriceatlanta.com, or you can reach out to me by phone. My phone number 770-744-0890. Thanks for watching this video..