What Costs Can I Expect to Pay from My Florida Personal Injury Lawsuit Proceeds?
Your Florida personal injury lawsuit involving a motor vehicle accident caused by someone else’s negligence has concluded with a settlement at a mediation of $150,000 and you’re very happy with the result. This is more than enough to pay for the damage that the other driver did to your car that you could not use for a week because you had to have it repaired; to repay your out-of-pocket portion of the medical bills from the treatment you had to undergo as a result of your injuries that insurance didn’t cover; to repay you for the two weeks of work that you missed as a result of that accident; and, ultimately, to compensate you for your considerable pain and suffering as a result of this incident. After a two-year-long ordeal that involved the accident itself and the aftermath of medical treatment, missing work and the like, you then found yourself in a fight with the other driver’s insurance company. You then had to go about finding a lawyer to take your case, give a deposition, and attend mediation, but you are finally done. You can move on with your life and put the accident, which was a terrible ordeal for you, behind you once and for all.
However, that $150,000 is just the total gross amount that the other driver’s insurance company has agreed to pay in settlement of your claims. That is not the amount that you will actually receive from the settlement proceeds of your case, which took two years and a lot of work and expense by your attorney. However, hiring an attorney was well worth it. After all, the other driver’s insurer was only willing to offer you $2,500 before you even hired a lawyer. It took filing a lawsuit, having your attorney spend two years litigating the case and spending money to get to that mediation to have an increase of $147,500 in the amount the other driver’s insurer was willing to offer you. Now, what can you expect to walk away with after all is said and done? This is an important question that is relevant for anyone with a personal injury lawsuit in Florida or has been injured by someone’s else’s negligence to understand when evaluating their case.
Costs Involved in Bringing a Florida Personal Injury Lawsuit
Many people are wary of filing a lawsuit or hiring a personal injury lawyer to represent them in connection with an incident in which they were injured by someone else’s negligence, often due to worries about the associated costs. Most often people are concerned that filing a lawsuit and hiring a lawyer will ultimately be too expensive and will eat away too much of any amount they are able to recover in connection with the incident in which they are injured. This is a valid concern because, as an injury victim, you want to maximize your recovery and the amount that you are taking home from your personal injury lawsuit. What you need to understand as an injury victim is that hiring an attorney will result in your obtaining more, not less, money from the party that injured you and their insurance company. Insurance companies will routinely try to settle claims for far less than they are worth for those people who are not represented by an attorney because they know that you, as an unsophisticated person unfamiliar with either the legal system or the law, do not know the true value of your case. This is why the insurance company can count on some people taking the nominal $2,500 offer they extended to you before you retained an attorney; the insurance company wins every time someone does that because you do not recover full compensation for your injuries by accepting that initial offer.
Our Interests Are Aligned With Yours
Personal injury attorneys operate on the contingency fee system. We only recover any money if you prevail in your case either after a trial or through a settlement. Since we do not get paid if you don’t get paid, our interests are aligned with yours. We want your recovery to be as high as possible because, the more that you recover, the more that we recover. In addition, if we are not successful in recovering for you, then we do not collect a dime ourselves. That is the whole purpose behind the contingency fee arrangement. Our interests are therefore completely aligned because we would not want to spend money that we could not ultimately see a return on. Therefore, when you choose an attorney to represent you in a personal injury matter, that lawyer is making an investment in your lawsuit just as much as you yourself are.
You Will See What We Spent and Why We Spent It in your Florida Personal Injury Lawsuit
At Schwed, Adams & McGinley, P.A., we will sit down with you at the end of a case to discuss the costs that we incurred on your behalf in seeking a maximum recovery for you. We prepare a detailed closing statement that lists every cent that we spent on your case and why we spent it. We will review this with you and you will have the opportunity to analyze it in detail and ask us questions about any charges or expenses you may have questions or concerns about. We will explain to you why a particular charge was necessary and how it helped to advance your case. Only after we have answered all of your questions to your satisfaction do we both sign the closing statement; then the proceeds from whatever settlement or jury verdict we were able to secure for you, our client, will the portion of the settlement that is due to you be released to you. By doing it this way, we seek to make the process as transparent to you as possible.
Contact the Experienced Personal Injury Attorneys of Schwed Adams & McGinley
When you or a loved one suffers a serious injury due to someone else’s negligence, you need legal assistance you can depend on to help you recover maximum compensation for those injuries. The experienced, skilled Florida personal injury lawyers at Schwed, Adams & McGinley, P.A. are adept at handling even the most complex personal injury claims. Our attorneys have more than 150 years of combined experience in personal injury litigation. We have experience working with clients who have suffered all different sorts of injuries in all different sorts of scenarios. We do everything we can to keep the costs of their lawsuits down for our clients but we will spend the money that is necessary to ensure our clients receive the maximum compensation for their injuries suffered as a result of someone else’s negligence. Call us today at 877.694.6079 or email us at contact@schwedlawfirm.com at to speak with an experienced personal injury lawyer today.