If you’ve suffered a personal injury, the best way to secure your case and get the compensation you deserve is to speak with a quality personal injury lawyer as soon as possible.
Sometimes when a lawyer settles your file, he or she will keep a portion of your settlement amount as payment. Depending on the firm, this is called commission or contingency fees. Most personal injury lawyers work on contingency fees, which allow you to recover without having to worry about fees until after your case is settled. Usually the contingency fee is fair (25% to 30%) often earned for years of hard work – but the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) suggests otherwise.
The IBC is the national industry association representing Canada’s private home, auto and business insurers. When the Ontario Trial Lawyers’ Association (OTLA) recently released the results of their study on auto insurance profits, the IBC alleged that the results were misrepresentative because the profits at issue excluded personal injury lawyers’ fees.
IBC’s Ralph Palumbo, Vice-President, Ontario, said, “Real reforms to the auto insurance product have been ongoing and continue and are reducing the cost of auto insurance in Ontario. If the lobbyists and well-heeled lawyers want to know who is driving up insurance costs, they need to take a look in the mirror. Personal injury lawyers and their sky-high fees are putting justice out of reach for too many Ontarians. Perhaps it is time that lawyers also reduce their fees to further reduce costs to consumers.”
What Mr. Palumbo does not take into account is the hard work the lawyers have done for their clients, and how much less injured patients’ compensation would be if there were no lawyer intervention.
Furthermore, without a contingency fee arrangement many injury victims could not afford the help of a lawyer. It becomes an access to justice issue.
It is important to ask questions if you have any concerns, and beware of lawyers who insist on billing you upfront. As much as possible, do research on the costs of working on your file.
