What is a Contingency Fee?

If you or somebody you love has sustained an injury caused by the actions of another person or business, you should be able to recover compensation for your losses. However, securing compensation can be challenging, particularly when you have to go up against insurance carriers and legal teams for the other party. We strongly suggest working with a skilled attorney who can help with your claim. Here, we want to discuss how a contingency fee arrangement works and how this can help you afford legal assistance while your personal injury claim is ongoing.

Personal Injury Claims Are Costly

One reason why many individuals shy away from contacting an attorney after sustaining an injury is that they know these claims can become costly. It is a fairly well-known fact that legal assistance is not cheap. When considering the entirety of a personal injury claim, we have to consider the costs of:

• Handling all paperwork involving the claim
• Investigating every aspect of the incident
• Handling all communication and negotiation with other parties
• Preparing the case for trial
• Going through the discovery process
• Preparing for depositions
• Getting ready for a trial by jury

All of this takes time and money. Most individuals who do not have legal experience are not able to fully prepare for every aspect of their claim, nor are they able to hand over the money upfront that they need to cover all of these expenses. However, there is a way for personal injury victims to afford their claims.

Contingency Fees Are Often Available

It is not uncommon for personal injury lawyers in Colorado to take these claims on a contingency fee basis. This means a few things.

• First, when an attorney works on a contingency fee basis, their client will not have to pay any upfront or out-of-pocket costs related to their injury claim. This means they will not have to pay for the investigation into the incident, the legal experts needed, the filing fees for the case, or any other costs that occur while the case is ongoing.
• Second, contingency fee arrangements mean that an attorney will not collect any legal fees while the case is ongoing. Legal fees will be collected out of an agreed-upon percentage of the final settlement or jury verdict amount. Typically, we will see contingency fee arrangements range anywhere from around 30% to 35%, depending on the situation. This means that if a person is awarded $1 million for their damages through a personal injury trial verdict, an attorney would receive $300,000 of that if the contingency fee arrangement was 30%.

While we know this may seem like a large amount of money to pay an attorney, individuals typically end up with more compensation even after the contingency fee is paid than they would have otherwise received if they handled the claim on their own.

One of the best aspects of a contingency fee arrangement for a personal injury claim in Colorado is that individuals will not pay legal fees at all if their attorney does not win the case. They will not have to pay back the legal expenses incurred along the way or the legal fees their attorney would typically charge.

If you or somebody you love has sustained an injury caused by the actions of another individual or entity in Colorado, we encourage you to reach out to a Denver personal injury lawyer as soon as possible to discuss your options.