Should You Rule Out the Injury Attorney Who Won't Reduce the Fee?

Should You Rule Out an Injury Attorney Who Won’t Reduce the Fee?

No. A lower fee can make a meaningful difference in how much on the money paid as compensation you keep. But even when several attorneys offer lower fees, an attorney proposing a higher fee may be the better choice for your particular claim. The complexity and specific requirements of your claim together with the skills of each attorney you are considering deserve just as much consideration as the fee being proposed.

The question is whether the proposed representation, considered as a whole, makes sense for you.

The fee is one part of the decision

An injury claim can involve much more than establishing who caused an accident. There may be disagreement about what caused a particular injury, how it will affect your ability to work, or what care you will need in the years ahead.

Different attorneys may bring different experience to those questions.

Imagine that you have a serious injury with an uncertain recovery. Several attorneys are interested in representing you. Two propose lower fees. A third proposes a higher fee but has substantial experience handling claims involving your particular injury and its long-term consequences.

During your conversations, that attorney identifies issues you had not considered and the other attorneys you met with did not raise, explains how those issues could be investigated, and gives you a clear understanding of the work ahead.

You might reasonably choose that attorney at the higher fee.

That does not establish that the attorney will obtain a better result. It does give you a reason to look beyond the fee comparison.

A lower fee and capable representation can go together

An attorney may propose a lower fee for several reasons based on the information you provide in your Paul’s Guide Claim Summary:

1. An attorney may reduce the fee if your claim involves specific facts or circumstances that the attorney is very familiar with such where the attorney represents multiple victims in the same incident.

2.  An attorney may reduce the fee if he has successfully tried cases against the same defendant such as a trucking company with hundreds of trucks on the road.

3.  An attorney may like to work on a specific number of cases at a time and be willing to reduce the fee to secure additional clients when his or her number of cases falls below a comfortable minimum.

Those are reasonable business judgments. A lower proposed fee does not mean the attorney will provide less capable or less attentive representation.  It means the attorney has identified good economic reasons for doing the work for less.

Likewise, a higher fee is not evidence of superior skill. An attorney’s unwillingness to reduce a fee tells you very little, by itself, about the quality of the services offered.

What matters is whether you can identify meaningful differences between the attorneys and their proposed representation.

Why I reconsidered requiring lower fees

While developing Paul’s Guide, we considered requiring attorneys to reduce their fees reduction in order to appear in the directory or receive an enhanced listing. It seemed like a straightforward way to provide a financial benefit to injured people we wanted to help.

Our reservation was that it could place too much emphasis on the amount of the fee and cause our clients to overlook other equally important considerations.

A fee reduction has real value. So can an attorney’s experience with a particular injury, ability to address a complicated factual dispute, or readiness to commit the resources a claim may require.

Compare what matters to your claim

When speaking with attorneys, consider asking:

• What issues in my claim deserve particular attention?

• What experience do you have addressing those issues?

• How would you approach the work?

• Who would be primarily responsible for my claim?

Listen for clear explanations tied to your circumstances. Those conversations can help you assess whether a difference in fees is accompanied by a meaningful difference in what an attorney offers.

Paul’s Guide is intended to help injured people provide useful claim information and compare proposals from attorneys they select. That process can create opportunities for more favorable fees while giving you a fuller basis for choosing representation.

Take a lower fee seriously. Consider it alongside the experience, approach, and commitment each attorney offers. The decision should reflect what matters most for your claim.