How are Fees for my Personal Injury Claim charged?
We are focused on ensuring that our clients get the best value in their personal injury claim, while still maintaining the costs of running a sustainable practice. If you have ever wondered about how Law Firm’s charge fees for their personal injury claims then read on.
Hourly Fees
Our staff members are classified under different titles depending on their skills set and experience. For meetings, conferences and phone calls our staff each have a different hourly rate dependent on their role. We charge per a unit of time (6 minutes) which is a portion of the set hourly fee. Perusing of documents, drafting and correspondence is charged per hundred words and is subject to different prices depending on whether it’s general communication verse detailed legal correspondence. Per 100 words verse charging hourly takes away any concern that our staff are slowly taking their time to fluff out legal fees. We track our time carefully using our software system, despite care taken and to the client’s benefit this software will never encapsulate the total hours we spend on each personal injury claim.
Large Scale Claim Fees.
At the end of the claim we weigh up work done verse the 50/50 rule. For large scale claims we organise for an individual cost assessor to go through the file and assess those final legal costs because for large claims our legal fees won’t even come close to 50 % of the total settlement. For large scale claims our clients benefit with our firms zero uplift fee. Many of our competitors charge a 25% uplift fee on their final legal costs as they see it as an entitlement to get more in their legal fees due to carrying the costs of the claim for an extended period and acting on a speculative basis.
Example Scenario
John’s claim settles for 500 thousand dollars. Revolution Law arranges a legal fee cost assessment which comes in at 60 thousand dollars. Revolution Law charges this fee. Competitors who entitle themselves to an uplift fee charge an additional 25% fee which in this example equals an extra 15 thousand dollars.
We don’t believe in enforcing such an ‘entitlement’, you pay for work done and we wear the costs of running our business.
Small Scale Claim Fees
For small-scale claims we will leave the decision up to the client whether they wish to get the claims cost assessed or just opt for the 50/50 rule. Clients recognise that for an average of 18 months of detailed legal work our costs are completely fair and reasonable. Clients who have engaged in other legal work with upfront costs are appreciative that they’ve had the benefit of the No Win No Fee policy in which their compensation is protected by the 50/50 rule.
Example Scenario
Jessie’s claim settles for 30 thousand dollars. After a total of 5 thousand in disbursements is paid back the remaining amount is 25 thousand dollars. Revolution Law can only charge 12,500 in legal fees even if we have conducted 35 thousand dollars’ worth of legal work.
Legal Fees Suck.
Yes, they do, we get that. The expenses of running a law firm isn’t a walk in the park either. Running a matter for 18 months without charging any upfront fees or even requiring clients to fund their own medical reports and outlays is risky. It’s a part of business. Our clients pay for a service provided and we work hard to ensure that our clients get the best possible outcome.
Why bother with a lawyer when you can run the claim yourself?
Simply put, even after legal fees are charged we will get you a better result in your hand. Averages of compensation payouts have been released in the 2017 Claimant Research Report conducted by the Motor Accident Insurance Commission (MAIC). These averages saw that Self-litigants averaged a total settlement amount of $13,481.94 and the average amount received in hand was $10,281.94. Comparatively, Claimants who were represented by a Lawyer averaged a total settlement amount of $93,305.46. The average amounts received in hand was $51,295.77.
Running a personal injury claim requires experience, expertise and time. The average figures of in the hand amount in the MAIC report shows that claimants can be some 40 thousand dollars better off with their in-hand payout even after legal fees. These figures speak for themselves and at Revolution Law we would be upfront with you when we initially assess your file if we think you could get a better in hand figure running the matter yourself.