What You'll Pay for an Accident Attorney

When you've been in a serious car accident that was not your fault and you need compensation for your recovery time and suffering, it is good to know that a personal injury attorney, or accident attorney, is accessible to you regardless of your monetary status. Justice for personal injuries is accessible to all because 99.9% of all accident attorneys charge their clients based on a contingency fee agreement. This means that you will pay your attorney a percentage of the amount you recover through your claim, or in other words, you only pay your attorney fees if you win your case.

The advantages of a contingency fee agreement are plentiful, the most obvious being the lack of risk involved for the client. If you don't win, you're not out the attorney fees, and if you do, you're still not really on the loosing end of things, because you are getting paid too. Another advantage is the fact that because your accident attorney only gets paid if you win, they will work hard to ensure your case settles in your favor. If an attorney takes your case, you can feel confident knowing that they took it because they believe they can win it for you. They won't take the case if they don't feel that it is worth their time and effort. The most advantageous part of a contingency agreement for you is the motivation this type of agreement has on your accident attorney to get you the largest settlement possible. If you were paying your accident attorney by the hour, how much you get from the settlement wouldn't matter as much to your attorney, but because he or she is paid based on how much you receive, they'll maximize your settlement so their paycheck is maximized too.

A contingency fee for a car accident attorney is typically 30% of your settlement, and for good reason if they are carrying all the costs of your case. Other personal injury attorneys can charge up to 40% for specialized cases and medical mal-practice cases contingency fee can be up to 50% of a settlement. The contingency fee agreement, however, does not always include expenses and overhead that are garnered during litigation, arbitration or a trial on behalf of your accident attorney. Typically those types of expenses are fronted by your accident attorney then taken out of your settlement before or after your medical expenses have been paid; though some firms will have you put a down payment on these expenses before their representation starts. There are also other costs you may be responsible if your case isn't settled in litigation and goes to trial. Be sure to ask your accident attorney what expenses and costs you will be responsible for, especially if your case goes to trial, and when you will be expected to pay them. Some accident attorneys will pay all the court costs anyway whether your case goes to trial or not so you don't pay anything at all out of pocket. Some attorneys will give the responsibility of court costs to you only if your case goes to trial, while others make court costs your responsibility regardless.

If your case goes to trial, some of the costs that you may be responsible for are as follows:

1. Complaint Filing Fee

When you take civil action against an individual or insurance company to have them compensate you for you time and suffering, you (or your accident attorney) have to pay a Complaint Filing Fee. This fee simply gets your case recognized and scheduled in court. The Complaint Filing Fee in the United States is $350 in district courts. If you are responsible for paying this fee up front and don't have the funds to do so, you can file your case with an application to proceed in forma pauperis, meaning you are incapable of paying the fee and would like to proceed without it. Your opponent also has to pay a similar fee for taking the case to trial, so don't feel put upon by the court for a law suit.

2. Motion Filing Fees

For every motion you have to file during your personal injury case, there is a motion filing fee. The fee differs by court, but is typically less than $50 per motion. There is no way to predict how many motions your accident attorney will be filing throughout the trial process, so these particular fees could add up pretty quickly. To add to the fee itself, the motion has to be filed at the courthouse, so if you and your accident attorney aren't in the area, or you can't wait to file it until one of you are, you will have to pay a third party attorney service to file it for you. What you pay the third party attorney service could be anywhere from $50 to $100 per motion.

3. Depositions of Witnesses

Often times, when a case goes to trial, you need witnesses to support you. Your accident attorney can gather information from witnesses informally or formally. If they meet with a witness informally, your attorney (or you) probably won't have to pay anything. Just make sure they get a written declaration or affidavit out of the meeting. If your accident attorney is meeting a witness formally, they may have to depose them. To depose someone means to serve a deposition notice or subpoena to them. Your attorney then has to schedule a time for the witness, the opposing insurance company's representative, and a court recorder and/or videographer to meet to obtain the witness's statement. A court recorder alone can charge up to $1000 per day, then add the videographer fees on top if you choose to have one, and one day can cost you quite a bit. So make sure that if your accident attorney is deposing witnesses, they try to schedule all of them for the same day.

4. Experts

If there is a question as to who is to blame for the accident in which you were seriously injured, you may need to hire an accident reconstructionist who can testify on your behalf. An accident reconstructionist is one of many types of experts your accident attorney could require to support your case. Experts typically charge by the hour, and they can be quite expensive. The average charge is $300 per hour, and that includes time spent preparing and testifying.

Another expert you may have to hire is an interpreter. If any of your witnesses or experts don't speak the primary language of the court, you will need an interpreter to translate. This may also be the case if someone is deaf.

5. Documentation

For every claim you make in your trial, you have to have documentation to back it up. Some of the documentation you may need to collect can come from the opposing insurance company's office. If this is the case, you probably won't be able to remove any of the original materials from their offices, so you'll have to hire a bonded copy shop to bring a copier or scanner to the premises where the documentation is held to make copies for you. There is typically a set up fee of close to $200 then you have to pay per copy. You may also have to pay for retrieval of accident reports, medical documentation, or other information pertaining to your case.

6.    Appeals

If you loose your case, you have the right to appeal the court's decision. The appeal filing fee can be anywhere from $50 to $1000 depending on your jurisdiction and what court you are appealing in, then any motions you file during your appeal have a fee attached, and all the other costs that were involved with the original case may still apply. An additional cost can come if you need a written transcript of the original proceedings. If you decide to appeal the court's decision, be prudent about how far you take things as the costs add up quickly.

7.    Opponent's Court Costs

If you loose, not only will you have to pay your accident attorney's court costs, but you may have to pay your opponent's court costs as well, which includes all of the fees and costs mentioned above and occasionally more. If the court decides that your case was frivolous, for example your compensation demands much too high for the injuries received, the judge may decide that you've wasted his or her time and have to pay your opponent's attorney fees as well. This doesn't happen often if your accident attorney knows what they are doing, but it does happen occasionally.

Before hiring an accident attorney, be sure to discuss all costs and obtain a written retainer agreement. Be sure to read the contract thoroughly before hiring them and have any questions about the contract answered. Just because an accident attorney works on a contingency fee basis doesn't mean he or she will foot all of the expenses and costs of your case.