Legal Question in Personal Injury in Ohio

The attorney may or may not be entitled to the feel charged. If in fact, he knew that there was limited insurance coverage for the defendant and the underinsured coverage and there was a medicare lien, the fee may be considered an excessive fee. Medicare will negotiate their entitlement down based upon the attorney fees and expenses. If this is all the available insurance coverage and the defendant is uncollectable then if you do not accept the settlement you will have to go to trial and even if you get a verdict above the insurance limits you still would only be entitled to the insurance coverage and would have to collect the blance from the defendant personally. Depending on the defendants assets you may have an uncollectable defendant and wind up getting no more than you can now. The attorney fee being charged by the attorney of 33.3% is standard and will have to be approved by the probate court and you can raise the issue at the probate hearing. At the end of the day, unless the attorney did very littled work to achieve the result he obtained, you will probably be required to pay the attorney the fees involved and after he negotiates with medicare you will probably end up with some net settlement proceeds. I would suggest sitting down with the attorney and reviewing the potential distribution and discuss the possibility of him reducing his fee under the circumstances of the limited recovery.

Hope this helps

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