- April 30, 2025
- Tucker Law
- Personal Injury Lawsuits
If you are seriously injured in any type of accident in New York, you may be worried about how you will pay for your medical bills, lost wages, and other costs. The legal system can potentially help you avoid financial hardship, but navigating it effectively requires the help of a lawyer. But how do you know you can handle the cost of personal injury lawyers for your particular case? Take a closer look at how lawyer fees for personal injury cases work in New York.
Flat Fees and Hourly Fees Are Uncommon
Lawyers are considered to be one of the highest-paid professions in the United States. This is because many lawyers charge flat fees or hourly fees for certain types of cases that can be significantly high. Criminal defense attorneys, for example, often charge several hundreds of dollars per hour for the work they do.
Similarly, it is not uncommon for a criminal defense lawyer to require a retainer of thousands before taking a case, as they expect to do enough work to cover the retainer. Personal injury lawyers, though, are not criminal defense lawyers. They rarely accept an hourly fee for their work, and a retainer is not typically necessary.
Some lawyers also charge fixed fees. These types of fees are usually charged for activities that require the same amount of effort for nearly all clients. For example, lawyers may charge a fixed fee for filing simple paperwork for common business transactions.
Personal injury claims, though, are far from static. The amount of work that an attorney might need to put into a relatively straightforward car accident claim could be quite different from the amount of effort required for a construction accident case that involves permanent paralysis. For these reasons, personal injury lawyers rarely charge flat fees.
Personal injury lawyers rarely charge flat fees or hourly fees, which are common fee structures in other types of law, like criminal defense.
General Lawyer Fees for Personal Injury Cases
You may be wondering what type of fee personal injury attorneys charge if they don’t accept flat fees or hourly fees. The answer to this common question is contingency fees. A contingency fee is a type of fee where your lawyer takes a percentage of the compensatory damages that they obtain for you.
This means that the more money you obtain, the more money the attorney receives as well. Conversely, if your lawyer fails to get any money for you, they will not charge you a fee.
Effectively, your personal injury lawyer is gambling on their abilities. This may seem like a risky approach for an attorney, but most personal injury lawyers can identify whether a case has merit and will accept only those cases that they have a reasonable chance of winning.
Were you seriously injured due to the negligent actions of another party in New York? You may be able to pursue compensation for the harm you suffered. Call Tucker Lawyers at (516) 399-2364 to schedule a free consultation today.
Limitations on Contingency Fees in New York
Some clients worry that a lawyer may take an excessive percentage of their settlement money. However, New York personal injury lawyers are regulated by the NY Rules of Professional Conduct. These rules place certain limits on contingency fees.
Reasonable Fees
The first rule is that all fees must be reasonable. The term “reasonable” isn’t defined, but it is typically recognized as somewhere between 25% and 40% of any damages obtained. If a lawyer tries to charge more than that, they may have to justify that percentage at a hearing.
If the court finds that the lawyer’s fee structure is unreasonable, the lawyer could be stripped of their law license, fined, or both, and any excessive fees would typically be returned to the client. As a result, to avoid any potential issues down the line, personal injury lawyers work to ensure their costs are fair for every client.
Full Communication
Additionally, a lawyer must fully explain their fee structure to a client in advance. This way, you can’t agree to a contingency fee structure only to discover that it is for 60% after the lawyer wins the case. Your attorney would have to tell you in advance that they intend to charge that much.
If a lawyer doesn’t fully communicate their fee structure before you agree to it, you are not bound by that fee. Any trustworthy attorney will explain their fees fully and put the agreement in writing so that you can take your time to fully understand it before signing it. Putting an agreement in writing also shows that the lawyer believes that it will hold up to legal scrutiny if needed.
Is It Worth Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer in New York?
Hiring a personal injury lawyer can be well worth your time in New York. People who hire a personal injury attorney to represent them tend to obtain higher compensation — even after legal fees are accounted for — than those who don’t.
This is often because the contingency fee structure encourages personal injury attorneys to pursue as much money as the law allows. Your attorney gets paid more money when they obtain higher damages for you. In most cases, this results in the client’s receiving a significantly higher payout than they otherwise would have.
Experienced personal injury lawyers can also prevent an insurance company from acting in bad faith. Insurance companies often hold almost all the cards in a personal injury claim. They also have more knowledge than most injury victims. By hiring an attorney, you give yourself the same advantages that insurance companies have, and that alone can result in a higher payout, even if your case doesn’t go to trial.
Turn to the Seasoned Legal Team at Tucker Lawyers Today
If you were seriously injured in New York due to the actions of another party, you deserve compensation to help you recover and move forward. At Tucker Lawyers, our experienced personal injury attorneys can fight on your behalf to obtain every dollar you are owed under the law, and we take pride in offering exceptional transparency and communication to every client.
Don’t risk your financial future. Contact Tucker Lawyers at (516) 399-2364 immediately to discuss your legal options with a seasoned personal injury attorney.
Managing Attorney John. J. Tucker, Esq.
John has personally handled thousands of clients who were victims of another’s negligence and fights relentlessly for their rights. John enjoys bringing closure to a client’s matter so that the injured party can move forward with their life. His background enables him to evaluate complex liability related claims and bring resolution to claims in a record time frame. [ Attorney Bio ]