What percentage do personal injury attorneys get?
What percentage do personal injury attorneys get? Clients ask us this question a lot. Clients also ask: how do I pay a personal injury attorney?
Most personal injury lawyers throughout Michigan (and the rest of the US) take cases on a “contingency.” We also take personal injury cases on a “contingency.” A contingency is just a fancy way of saying: “if you win and receive payment, we take a share of it; if you lose and don’t receive payment, we get nothing.”
The standard amount in Michigan is one-third (33.3%). That is also the percentage we use too.
The Michigan rules for lawyers set this amount. Most personal-injury lawyers in Michigan follow it. Other states allow different amounts. For example, some states allow the lawyer to charge 40% or 50% depending on if the case goes to trial.
The rule is in the Michigan Rules of Professional Conduct (Rule 1.5) and the Michigan Court Rules (Rule 8.121(A) and (B)).
However, there is a little bit of an exception to this rule. The amount is for personal-injury and wrongful-death cases, which means someone was hurt or killed. If your case is a different type of case (for example, fighting over a contract), the contingency amount can change.
Also, the client generally also has to pay for “case costs.” Case costs are things like filing fees, deposition fees, expert-witness fees, etc. This is not money that goes to the lawyer for an attorney fee. The client sometimes pays some or all of these fees.
Other times, the attorney pays some or all of the fees and then gets reimbursed. The attorney would take those costs out of any settlement or money the client receives.
So let’s see how this works.
You get injured in a car crash. You are not responsible for the crash at all. Your fee agreement is the standard 33.3% allowed in Michigan.
Your lawyer files a Complaint to start your case, which costs $250. The lawyer advances the filing fees for you (meaning you don’t pay it right away).
Right after filing the case, the other driver’s car insurance agrees to pay you $100,000 for your injuries.
The lawyer gets 33.3% of the $100,000. That equals $33,300 for the attorney fee. $66,700 remains.
The lawyer now subtracts $250 from the remaining $66,700 for reimbursement of the advanced filing fee.
You get the last $66,450.
Obviously, this is just a simple example. The more complex a case is, the more the fees are. But, the process stays the same.