Like all lawyers, personal injury lawyers expect to be paid for their services. Still, an injured victim might have depleted the funds in his or her savings account. By the same token, a defendant might have access to only a limited amount of money.
A personal injury attorney could represent someone on either side of a case that had been initiated by an injured accident victim.
• The plaintiff has brought the claim.
• The defendant is allegedly responsible for the accident’s occurrence.
The attorney for a plaintiff would ask that same client to sign a contingency fee agreement.
A client’s signature on such a document shows that the signee (the client) has agreed to give the Personal Injury Lawyer in St Thomas some percent of any awarded compensation. That percent usually falls inside of this range: 30% to 40%. Some agreements specify a lower percentage during pretrial negotiations, and a higher percentage, if the case gets decided in a courtroom.
A defendant’s lawyer gets paid by the hour.
The defendant’s insurance company selects and pays the lawyer that defends the policyholder that has been accused of actions that have contributed to the occurrence of an accident. Because it has sought an annual premium payment from each of its policyholders, an insurance company should feel obligated to defend those same policyholders. Still, a lawyer that respected the ethical considerations that are linked to a lawyer-client relationship should not feel compelled to push for a decision that would be in the interests of the insurance company.
Lawyers that demonstrate the influence of ethics have the interests of their clients at heart, when defending a client in a personal injury case. Hence, any lawyer’s ties to an insurance company should prove of less importance than the requirements of the represented client.
If a defendant has failed to buy insurance, then he or she must pay out of pocket for any attorney’s services. Yet it might not be necessary for the same defendant’s limited funds to go towards payment of the plaintiff’s compensation. It could be that the plaintiff has purchased uninsured motorist coverage.
That would mean that the plaintiff’s compensation should come from the same plaintiff’s insurance company. Still, if the plaintiff and the defendant had to face each other in a courtroom, then some of the defendant’s money would get spent on a personal injury lawyer.
Plaintiffs that have purchased some type of uninsured motorist coverage do not give any defendants a “free pass.” Motorists that have tried to save money by failing to buy automobile insurance could later end up footing the bill for a lawyer’s services. Lawyers understand how to go after any money that might be owed to them by a client/defendant.