Truck accident victims like you have expensive medical bills, may be out of work for months, and carry a heavy financial burden. You don’t want to add lawyer fees on top, and we understand. The good news is, when you work with our firm, it costs nothing up front to hire an experienced Greenville truck accident lawyer.
Many other lawyers charge retainer fees or bill by the hour and require payment before starting to work on your case. Most personal injury lawyers, though, don’t. Instead, they operate on a contingency fee, meaning that they only get paid if they win your case, taking a percentage of the settlement to cover their fees and the cost of litigating your case.
How does this work? Well, you still have to pay your lawyer, but after the case is over, not before the first motion is filed. Your specific fees are unique to your case and depend on several factors, which we’ll explain below.
How contingency fees work in South Carolina
A contingency fee is a fee payable on the contingency that a specific outcome occurs; in this case, a settlement of your claim or a jury award of damages. Personal injury lawyers receive a percentage of the settlement, usually 33-40%, depending on the complexity of the case and the time and resources the lawyer must devote to case-building.
South Carolina law prohibits attorneys from collecting unreasonable fees, but it acknowledges that certain cases may have more complex issues to address, which can affect the amount the lawyer charges.
Let’s look at an example of how the fee works:
If a case settles for $100,000, and our contract provided for a 33.3% continengy fee, then the attorney fee would be $33,333.33.
How are legal fees calculated in contingency-fee cases?
You may be looking at that $33,333.33 thinking, “Wow, that’s a lot!” However, complex cases like trucking cases can takes hundreds of hours of time and effort to litigate, and involve a whole team of people on your side from the attorneys themselves, to investigators and paralegals.
How does hiring a lawyer benefit me?
Truck accident claims are a lot more complicated than collisions between two private drivers. You may be dealing with multiple defendants (the trucker and their employer), which means building two cases. In addition, the trucking company likely has an entire team of lawyers, all focused on making sure you lose.
Your lawyer has access to private investigators, medical experts, transportation experts familiar with truck driver regulations, and accident reconstructionists who demonstrate how the trucker caused the crash. You probably don’t. You’re probably hurt badly, trying to recover, and in a lot of pain. Your lawyer covers pursuing compensation for your claim, so you can focus on your recovery.
Contingency fees allow injured people like you to access top-quality legal representation. If you’ve been hurt in a truck accident, contact Smith Jordan Law at (864) 343-2222 for a free consultation.
