Legal Question in Personal Injury in Georgia

Re: Attorney fees.

The two previous answers are correct, with this warning:What does your employment contract with your attorney say? That will control.

The law that will govern is the law of the state in which you reside (assuming your lawyer is in the same state). Consult a local attorney.

Re: Attorney fees.

Unless your written fee agreement specifically says otherwise, the lawyer is entitled to take 1/3 of the Gross recovery. Thus, the lawyer gets one third, you get 2/3's. The medical bills are paid out of your 2/3s. That is why the gross amount either has to be negotiated up or in some of our cases, we negotiate directly with the company for example, You pay these $60,000 in bills (which they write a check to us or it is a book entry on the settlement) and you pay the client $500,000 for the tort, permanent injury. Thus, thought the fee agreement allows us to take gross, we generally do the recapitulation, where we vector (in the above hypothetical) the $60,000 to the unpaid meds (and by the way you have to get releases from the Doctors and Hostptial and hospital liens for that) then we split the $500,000 1/3 and 2/3. Though most newer agreements that will or may produce a 7 figure recovery now reduce the attorney fee to 30% or 25%.

However, if it is not specifically spelled out in your atty client fee agreement, the atty may take 1/3 of the Gross.

HCW

Re: Attorney fees.

The 33 1/3% contingent attorney fee is normally calculated as a percentage of the gross amount the attorney obtains for you from the party at fault or its insurer, or under uninsured / underinsured motorist coverage from your insurance company. If that is the only fund for payment of your attorney fees, the medical bills are paid out of your net recovery after payment of attorney fees and expenses. On the other hand, if you have health insurance coverage, medical payments coverage under an auto insurance policy, etc., most lawyers do not charge anything additional for helping to process those claims with your own insurance company.