A La Carte legal Fees in Contingency Cases?
For those who need some legal help but cannot afford to hire a lawyer to represent them, it might be worth while to think about “Doing it Yourself.” Or maybe part of it yourself. There was an story about this in the New York Times recently. This sort of idea may be helpful in many different types of cases, such as divorce or landlord-tenant disputes. Since I specialize in Personal Injury, this blog will discuss the needs of a client who wants a lawyer to help on part of the case, for example getting it settled. I call this a la carte legal representation.
The Florida Bar Association allows attorneys to ethically handle legal matters on a limited scope basis. See the Rule 4-1.2 (c).
How would it work?
- “Limited scope representation” allows lawyers to unbundle their services and take only part of the case.
- Lay persons know they have a tremendous disadvantage due to huge knowledge gaps between themselves and insurance adjusters. Would it be worth 10% of the settlement for legal representation from an experienced personal injury attorney to be sure you did not settle too cheap? I think so.
- The lawyer can conduct a conference with the client and agree to do limited work for a much lower fee than if he handled the entire case. The client can collect copies of all the medical records, bills, photographs and accident report. He can provide a summary of what he has been through. He can assemble them for the attorney, thus saving himself fees for substantial overhead, time and expense.
- More than ninety percent of all cases settle for less than $25,000 and in some personal injury law firms the lawyer’s paralegal handles the case anyway.
Makes sense to me. The quality of the work would be as high as if the attorney handled the whole case.
Here are my conditions to accepting work on a limited ala carte basis:
- Lawyer is retained solely to handle settlement negotiations for client. No further services are included.
- Fee to be ____% of settlement, including costs.
- Settlement to be paid to lawyers trust account.
- Lawyer has no duty to pay off any liens or issue LOP.
- Client must provide lawyer with copies of all insurance policy declaration pages, name and address of all adjusters, copies of all medical records and bills relevant to the alleged injuries, copies of statements, accident reports, photos, wage loss documentation, and a history of his prior medical treatment.
- Client will sign documents authorizing settlement by lawyer within an agreed settlement range after discussing same with lawyer. Client agrees to accept agreed amount in full and complete settlement and to release all responsible parties.
- Lawyer will not file a lawsuit or prepare any letters or correspondence to anyone except insurance adjusters.
- For an additional ____% lawyer will attend mediation.
- The client represents that his Case is not in litigation and client will not file suit without first providing 30 days notice to lawyer. Lawyer has no duties toward client if case is filed by client.
- If client discharges lawyer and the case later settles, lawyer will be paid out of recovery for agreed percentage.
- Lawyer will provide client with conference time. Lawyer will not start settlement negotiations until client provides items in 5 above.
- If additional work is requested by Client, the new Scope of Work must be agreed to in writing by Client and lawyer.
