Q: Is there a way/anything that I can say that will help negotiate lawyer fees in personal injury case?
Even to his own account, my lawyer has done close to nothing for my case. He verbatim said, “I haven’t done sh*t for this case.” We just settled after almost 6 years for a very low amount. My case was by no means complicated. I suffered a concussion & hearing loss. I acted as the independent investigator he should have hired. Ex. He had me to go to the accident scene to take pictures & had me draw a diagram of it. He filed no motions, didn’t conduct any depositions, and we had 1 pretrial meeting (?). Both doctors were of my finding & he had no contact whatsoever with either. I handled ALL correspondence, including providing language to a doctor for a letter about impact/injuries from accident. No edits were made to said letter. I requested, ordered, reviewed, & marked the pages where injury was mentioned in my doctor’s records. Additionally, I had to CONSTANTLY remind him to send my responses/new offer to adjuster or he wouldn’t & would go 4+ months w no contact.
A:
Presuming you signed a retainer agreement granting your attorney a fee equivalent to one third of the gross settlement amount recovered on your behalf, you are generally bound by the contract you signed to retain your lawyer.
Notwithstanding that you are not satisfied with the amount of work you attorney performed for your case, alternatively, you may request a fee reduction in consideration of your participation. Your attorney does not have to accept your request but on your approach and communication thereof, your attorney may give you a discount on the legal fee.
Tim Akpinar agrees with this answer
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