Legal Question in Personal Injury in Texas

Re: does attorney get a part of backpay as well as a third of the settlement

Your inquiry is somewhat confusing. Assuming that you entered into a Power of Attorney agreement with an attorney, that agreement is controlling in terms of his/her 'contingency' interest in the outcome of the case. If 'lost wages/loss of earning capacity' is the element of personal injury damages that you are describing as 'backpay', I would suspect that the Power of Attorney agreement will allow that attorney, as part of his fee arrangement, the same percentage against that element of damage as against all of the others to which you and/or the others are entitiled.

If there are minor claimants involved, some Power of Attorney/Contingency Fee Agreements differ in terms of the percentage of the recovery for a minor that will be allocated as attorney's fees as opposed to an adult claimant/plaintiff. Depending on where the lawsuit is pending, the court sometimes gets involved in determining the percentage applied for attorney's fees in the case of a monetary recovery for a minor. (That is nomally not true in the situation of an adult claimant/plaintiff.)

Good luck.