Car Accident Attorney Fees- Contingency fee's explained by Car Accident Attorney John Kelly

- We're with John Kelly.  John Kelly has agreed
to answer a question that was posted online.   He's a car accident attorney
 in Phoenix, Arizona. John, the question for you was,    "Can you explain
  car accident fees  as well as contingency fees?" - Yeah sure, car accident fees, most personal injury attorneys,   so if you're injured
 in a car accident  and you have a
personal injury claim,    there's several different
  types of fee arrangements that attorneys can use.

There can be a flat fee
where you have to pay   an attorney up front
 a flat amount for what they're gonna work
the rest of your case. You can do it on an hourly basis    or you can do a
  contingency fee agreement  which most personal
injury attorneys use.  So contingency fee agreements,
what that means is that    you don't actually have to
  pay the attorney anything    until they are
  successful with your case and that's the way
that my practice is run   with a car accident.   So what happens is, someone
 comes in in a car accident we sign a fee agreement
that tells them that after the case is settled, that I'm going to take
a percentage of the fee or the settlement that comes in    and that's the
  global settlement.

  So there's probably a lot
  of questions with that which I can try to
address a few of those.   That means basically
 that I'm working  your case until we are
successful on the case  without any money paid to me.   Now when that gets settled,   I would take a
 percentage of that.   So one of the things that
 you have to consider though,  with a lot of personal
injury attorneys   that is not always discussed
 right off the bat are, "How are the costs
associated with the case  going to be handled?"   So expert witnesses, people
 that are coming in to    do evaluations, engineers,   anyone that needs
 to testify at trial.

  These are all people that
  need to be paid up front   so you want to make sure
 that you ask your attorney,   "I understand that I'm going
 to be paying a percentage  of the settlement, the global
settlement of the case, but how are we going to
take care of the costs?"   Some firms and
 attorneys will say, "Look, I'll front all the costs  but I want those all
recouped at the end." Others will say,    "Look, I'm willing
  to front the costs   and not get that recouped."  So it's something that you can   ask your attorney
 about and negotiate.    Now the percentage
  is another thing   that you want to know about   and most attorneys
 in Arizona are about    a third of the settlement; some are a little
higher, some are lower.   So you want to talk
 about that too.  And then finally, you
want to understand  how that fee is going
to work in the end.

 So what happens is
 once your attorney;    let's say that you
  didn't go to trial you actually settled the claim. That's when you actually
get paid on your case   you don't get money
 until you actually    are successful in
  settling your case   or winning at trial.   So when your
 attorney settles it,    they typically have to put
  it in their bank account,   their client trust
 fund for a few days.    All the money will
  go to the firm, they'll pay all your
medical care providers,  they'll negotiate any
liens that you have    meaning anything that the
  medical care providers  are wanting as far as payment    and sometimes they
  can get reductions  on the amounts that they want.

And then they'll
pay you the rest and so some of the times
there's a question of,    "Well is it worth
  it to me to pay an attorney, you know a
percentage of the fee?" So some of the things
you have to keep in mind  is that the attorneys know how
the insurance companies work. We know how to make
sure that you're getting    the maximum benefit of
  your fee, your settlement.   We know how to make
 sure that we're  looking at all avenues
of settlements.  So if there's other insurance
policies that are available    we'll look at those and
  try to get that money too.

We know how to read your
own insurance policy   and a lot of times you have extra benefits that
you're unaware of there.  And then we're aware
of getting reductions in a lot of your
medical expenses that allow you to have more
money in your pocket in the end.  So those are some of
the things to consider   and I hope this is helpful.   - Excellent, thanks
 for your time   and if you have
 any more questions;    oh we're having
  some reverb there.

  If you have any more
  questions you can actually just post your comments,   or questions in the comments
 section below the video    and John has agreed to get
  back to you with answers.    Thanks for your time John..