Deciding whether or not to hire an accident injury attorney after receiving a settlement offer from an insurance company can be a bewildering process. The injured person may receive a lot of opinions from friends and relatives about this issue. Some encourage this individual to hire the lawyer because a bigger settlement may be forthcoming once a legal professional is involved, while others say the fees paid to the lawyer won’t make the higher settlement worthwhile.
Being able to have a free consultation with an accident injury attorney to evaluate the case is important. An experienced lawyer knows how much an insurer will probably be willing to pay out, even though those companies routinely begin with a lower offer. Comparing the existing offer with the probable offer will allow the client to understand whether getting a lawyer involved is worthwhile.
A firm such as Affolter & Gannon typically accepts cases on a contingency fee basis, meaning the firm doesn’t charge any upfront fees and instead receives a full payment after a client receives a settlement or court award.
A court award is not as common as an insurance company settlement because most personal injury cases don’t proceed to trial. Insurers nearly always prefer to settle cases instead of taking on the expense and unpredictability of a trial, because they know that a jury may feel sympathetic to an injured person and be inclined to set a court award that’s even higher than the settlement the lawyer asked for. Of course, that unpredictability can be a disadvantage for the plaintiff as well, since the jury may provide a lower court award.
The contingency fee is a certain percentage of the amount the client receives; typically it’s one-third of that figure. A lawyer can explain these details to a potential client when reviewing the existing settlement offer and comparing it to the settlement the attorney believes is reasonable. When there is a substantial difference between the two figures, it’s smart to hire an attorney to acquire the additional funds. If the difference is relatively small, such as a thousand dollars, that’s a different story. Further information is available at the website domain URL.
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