Legal Fees

                                    How do you pay a personal injury lawyer?

Traditionally, lawyers are paid by the hour for the time spent on a case.  The problem with this type of fee arrangement is that people who are injured may not have adequate financial resources to afford the services of a lawyer, especially the lawyer of their choice.

To solve this problem, lawyers offer contingent fee agreements.  Contingent fee agreements are agreements between an injured person and the personal injury law firm whereby the personal injury law firm provides legal services, without charge, to the injured client until and unless there is a recovery in the injured person’s case.  Basically, the injured client does not pay for the lawyer’s services unless money is recovered in the personal injury case.  The law firm takes the risk it will not be paid for all their time and effort.  Some law firms will pay for the numerous case costs along the way and other law firms will ask the injured client to pay for the costs or a portion of those costs.

In New Jersey, a contingent fee agreement is set by law.  In the usual case (up to $500,000 in recovery), the contingent fee set by New Jersey law is 1/3 of the recovery after case expenses are paid.  In Pennsylvania, there is no set percentage as to what personal injury lawyers may charge in a contingent fee agreement.  Personal injury lawyers in PA routinely charge up to 40-50% of the cases’ recovery.  If there is a case recovery, this personal injury contingent fee is charged before case expenses are paid.  

The Bucks County, PA, Mercer County, NJ and Philadelphia personal injury lawyers at Saile & Saile LLP believe that the normal Pennsylvania contingent fee arrangement is unfair.  In our experience, over 99% of personal injury cases settle before they go to trial.  Some cases settle faster than others.   The faster a case settles usually means that the personal injury case involved less work for the personal injury law firm.  Fast and easy settlements add up to big profits for lawyers.  This is not fair to the innocent injured client, which is why we created the

Saile & Saile LLP Client First Fee Agreement

If our client’s case settles early, that client pays a discounted fee.  We feel that it is only fair that a personal injury law firm gets paid for the work it performs and does not get a windfall for a quick and easy personal injury case settlement.  Contact us to set up a free initial consultation to review your PA or NJ personal injury case.  You will find out that Saile & Saile LLP’s Client First Fee Agreement is more fair than most other personal injury attorneys fee agreements anywhere.