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There is an awful injury law firm in Chicago that has the worst commercials ever. That’s not what makes them awful though. They suck because I get about five calls a week from their unhappy clients and they usually all have similar stories. Their complaints are either A. They promised me things that aren’t true. B. I have a new lawyer on my case every month. C. They don’t return my phone calls. D. They don’t answer my questions. E. All of the above.
Essentially this firm markets themselves like crazy, but doesn’t care about their clients. They lose a lot of staff because people don’t want to work for unethical attorneys.
A recent caller to my office had hired this shady firm for a car accident case. What’s crazy is that this firm is really a work injury firm, but apparently is trying to get injury cases too. The caller had the similar concerns as their other unhappy clients do, but also questioned their attorney fee. This firm was asking for 37.5% fee just to take the case, 40% if a lawsuit is filed, more if it goes to trial and 50% if there is an appeal!
That fee request is nuts. Basically they are robbing their clients who accept it. There’s no law for attorney fees, but except for very difficult cases you should be able to get an outstanding attorney whose fee fill be 1/3 of what they recover. Many lawyers charge 40% on every case because they can get away with it, but if I was you I wouldn’t ever pay more than 1/3 and in some major injury cases you can get that down tow 25-30%.
To make matters worse in this case, the firm, after the surgeon discharged the client from medical care, forced him to go to a doctor buddy of theirs for physical therapy. Of course that was done to try and inflate the bills to make the case worth more, but what’s really going to happen is it will make the case worth less because the insurance company won’t pay for it. Ultimately, since this is a big injury case, the doctor will get paid, but it will come out of money that should have gone to the client.
It’s a pretty shady operation all around.
Bottom line is that you should not pay more than 1/3 to any injury attorney and you should never give them money up front. If they are asking for that it’s a bad sign for them. If you want help finding the best lawyer for your case, contact us for an unbiased opinion.