What you'll pay an accident attorney

If you have been involved in a serious car, accident chances are you will be looking to hire an accident attorney. However, if the amount of your claim is between $2,500 and $15,000, the maximum amount allowed is going to vary depending on your state, you can handle the lawsuit yourself in Small Claims Court. If you plan on asking for more than the maximum amount allowed you are going to want to hire an accident lawyer to represent you because the lawsuit will need to be filed in Civil Court.

If you are going to hire a lawyer for a car accident lawsuit, you need to be aware of the fact that most lawyers do not handle the property damage claims, which is reimbursement for repairing or replacing your car. The reason for this is that the amounts in these claims are far less than medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering from injuries claims, meaning you will recover less so the lawyer's fee will not be enough to help them cover the costs. Even though they do not handle the property damage part of the claim, they will still give you advice on how to negotiate with the insurance company or how to pursue the case in small claims court. However, if you are hiring a lawyer to represent you for injuries that are related to the car accident, many of them will handle your property damage claim at no additional cost.

If you are hiring a car accident lawyer to represent your for your injuries in a lawsuit where the other driver was at fault, the lawyer will most likely work on a contingency basis. This means that they will not be paid unless you are paid, if you end up winning the lawsuit the lawyer will then take anywhere from 30-40% of the money that you received. If you settle before trial, the lawyer will sometimes take a lower percentage, whereas they will take a higher percentage if the case is appealed. On the other hand, if you do not win your lawsuit then the lawyer will not take any fees. Lawyers that work on a contingency basis are very fussy about the cases that they take because they want to win so that they can be paid. Different lawyers will take their percentage from the money received in different ways. Some lawyers choose to take their percentage after all of the medical bills have been paid, which lowers the amount that they receive. Whereas others will take their percentage from the total amount of money received.

Before you hire a lawyer, make sure that they provide you with a written fee agreement, which will include which court costs will be paid by the lawyer and which court costs you will need to pay, if any. Here is list of some of the other costs that are associated with lawsuits.

Number one: Complaint filing fee
In order to file a lawsuit you are going to need to pay the complaint filing fee, which is around $320. This fee is paid to the Court as soon as you file your lawsuit. The person who you are suing also has to pay this same fee when they first appear in court. In this case, it is called a "first appearance fee" rather than a "complaint filing fee.

Number two: Motion filing fee
In order to file your motion you are going to need to pay the court $40. The fee is going to be charged to you for each motion that you file and with a lawsuit, there is no way to determine how many motions are going to be filed. However, if you or the attorney that you have hired is not located near the courthouse you are going to need to hire a third party attorney service company to file the motion for you or to fax-file the motion for you. In order to use this service you are going to have to pay the service an extra $50 to $100 to file the motion for you, and you will have to pay this each time you have them file a motion.

Number three: Depositions
Depending on the type of witnesses you use this can cost you anywhere from a cup of coffee to $1,000 to $2,000 per day. In most cases, you are going to need to depose your witnesses so it is going to cost you $1,000 to $2,000 per day. When you are deposing your witness, you are going to need to serve them with a deposition notice/subpoena. After serving them you are going to need to schedule a time that is convenient for everybody to meet to depose the witness, this includes the witness, the defendant and his or her attorneys. You will also need to hire a court reporter to transcribe the proceedings, which is where the charges come in. You might also need to videotape the proceedings and if you cannot do that yourself you can easily spend another $1,000 to $2,000 a day on a certified videographer. If your witness needs an interpreter, there will be additional charges for the interpreter, as well.

Number four: Copies
In some cases, you are going to want to hire a bonded copy shop to bring a scanner or copier to the place where documents are located so you can make copies of them to help prove your case. This is especially true if the defendant has the documents that you need to obtain, the defendant is not going to allow you to take the documents to copy yourself. Hiring this service is going to cost you a setup of fee, which is around $200. You will also need to pay a fee per page that is copied; this can range from 10 to 40 cents per page. Some copy places have a minimum fee, so you might end up paying that fee if you do not have many copies to make.

Number five: Experts
Most lawsuits require that you hire experts to testify in your defense. An expert is somebody who can testify in court about topics that are outside the knowledge of everyday people. Some examples of professionals that would be considered experts are engineers, physicians, psychiatrists, economists, accident reconstructionists, human resource experts, etc. Experts are not cheap, they can cost you anywhere from $200 to $400 per hour, some experts charge even more than that.

Number six: Appeals
Not all cases will have an appeal, but if you lose your case, you might consider appealing the decision. If you decide to file an appeal, the cost to file it is around $700. In some cases, you are going to need to obtain the written transcription of your court hearing to support your appeal; your lawyer will be able to tell you if this is needed. If you do need the written transcription, it can cost you as much as $1,000, how much it costs is going to depend on how long the written transcription is.

Number seven: Lose the lawsuit
If you lose the lawsuit, you can end up having to pay your opponents court costs, which includes everything mentioned above, but can also include other costs. In some cases the court will also make you pay your opponents lawyers fess, this usually only happens if the court feels the lawsuit was frivolous from the start. If you have to pay your opponent's lawyer fees, this can add up quite fast. The reason for this is that most attorneys charge anywhere from $200 to $1,000 per hour.

Some lawyers will pay the court costs that are associated with your lawsuit, meaning that your lawsuit is not going to cost you anything out of pocket. Majority of the lawyers who will pay for the court costs that are associated with the lawsuit are the ones that work on a contingency basis. Having to pay for all of the court costs out of pocket is a way to justify charging 30-40% of the total money received. So when looking to hire an accident attorney you are going to want to ask them if they pay all some or none of the court costs that can be associated with your lawsuit. If they are not paying all of the court costs and are still trying to charge you 30-40% of the money you receive, you should look elsewhere for a car accident lawyer.

Something else to keep in mind is that if you do not want to pay for all of these court fees you can also try other means to settle your lawsuit. You can go to mediation where you can meet with a trained mediator to try to resolve your dispute. Alternatively, you can go to arbitration, which is where an arbitrator hears the evidence and decides how to settle the case, similar to the role of a judge. In order to try these methods both parties are going to need to agree to submit the case to mediation or arbitration.