Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

You agreed to pay the attorney 40% and you agreed to accept $15,000 in settlement. Those were your decisions. The attorney's fee was stated in the original contract for the attorney's services that you signed. Medicare has to be paid from the settlement because it has a lien. The cost of medical bills and lien for medical bills are not deducted before computing the attorney's fee. Whether or not the costs are subtracted before computing the attorney's fee depends and what the attorney-client agreements states. The attorney is required to give you a break-down of the litigation and claim related costs. The funds have to go into the attorney trust account and then disbursed to you, Medicare and the attorney for his fees and costs. If Medicare has made a demand on the lien then the amount requested should be it. There is a reduction from the Medicare demand for attorney's fees and a pro-rata share of the litigation costs that your attorney will have to compute. It is not uncommon for the person attending the mediation to have limited authority to settle and to have someone standing by on the phone to give the final OK on the settlement. Slip and fall cases are not so easy and are often lost in court so your attorney might be right about having gotten you a good settlement. I do not know anything about your case but it seems that your attorney did fail to make you understand why he believes your settlement was good in his opinion. It seems that there was a communication problem. You should ask the attorney to explain to you why he or she thinks the settlement was great.