How much does a Personal Injury Lawyer make?

How much does a Personal Injury Lawyer make?

You may have landed on this post because you have something to do with a Personal Injury Lawyer in your life. Maybe you are looking for a hot question about a Personal Injury Lawyer.

If you are looking for the answer to that hot question that says – “How much does a Personal Injury Lawyer make?”, then you are in right place.

You will easily find a lot of websites and forums where they have discussed how much does a Personal Injury Lawyer makes?

But in most of them, the information is either incorrect or it is outdated. People just want accurate and updated information.

Some people want to know how much does a Personal Injury Lawyer makes a year. That’s it! But some look for the yearly salary of a Personal Injury Lawyer because they want to join this field.

Yeah! That’s a good thing for motivation too. In this post, we will discuss and know how much does a Personal Injury Lawyer makes? So, be with us for a while.

Different types of Personal Injury Lawyers

How much does a Personal Injury Lawyer makes depend on various things? But a person looking to join this field can easily make handsome money on yearly basis.

It is better than many other professions. But we must tell you that Personal Injury is a vast field.

There are different types of Personal Injury Lawyers. If we tell you precisely there are more than 12 different types of Personal Injury Lawyers.

According to its name, this field deals in cases related to Personal Injuries. You will be surprised to know that some cases also involve deaths.

Other cases deal with worker’s compensation, cases related to employment, cruise ship cases, and many other cases that involve injuries.

Here is the list of cases that a Personal Injury Lawyer handles. It’s not necessary that a Personal Injury Lawyer has to handle all types of cases or he should deal in these all types of injury cases.

Some are experts in one or another injury case. Let’s have a look at this list.

• Cases related to Auto accidents.
• Cases related to Wrongful death.
• Cases related to Motorcycle accidents.
• Cases related to Burn injuries.
• Cases related to Animal bite injuries.
• Cases related to Brain injuries.
• Cases related to Aviation accidents.
• Cases related to Amusement park accidents.
• Cases related to Insurance/bad faith.
• Cases related to Spinal cord injuries.
• Cases related to Construction accidents.
• Cases related to Swimming pool drowning accidents.
• Cases related to Nursing home abuse.
• Cases related to Slip and fall accidents.
• Cases related to Legal malpractice.
• Cases related to Pedestrian accidents.
• Cases related to Defective products.

Factors that counts for the yearly income of a Personal Injury Lawyer

You can easily find websites on the internet that say around $60 per hour is an average wage of a Personal Injury Lawyer.

But, with this, you cannot estimate an average yearly salary of a Personal Injury Lawyer. A Personal Injury Lawyer can make more than $75,000 a year.

A Personal Injury Lawyer works on a commission basis most of the time. He/She charges a commission as a percentage of what they collect as compensation for their client.

In some cases, where a Personal Injury Lawyer is working for a big firm, can make between $75,000 to $150,000 as per his/her experience.

Now, let’s know how much percentage a Personal Injury Lawyer charges as commission to clients.

How much percentage does a Personal Injury Lawyer charge as a commission?

Many states in the US have different rules for a lawyer to charge a contingency fee to a client. Some states allow the parties to decide the amount on their own.

Generally, Personal Injury Lawyers take around 1/3rd i.e. 33.33% of the total amount. In some cases, it ranges between 25% to 33.33% of the total amount.

If the Personal Injury Lawyer has to file suit then his/her commission can increase up to 40% of the total amount.

If the Personal Injury Lawyer has to collect punitive damages or has to go to trial then the commission can increase up to 50% of the total settlement amount.

This way a Personal Injury Lawyer can make above $200,000 a year based on different scenarios and conditions.

So, you can easily see that it’s not as easy a matter as it looks because “How much does a Personal Injury Lawyer make?” depends on various factors.

But a possible settlement amount in a case is around $100,000 and that’s why not every Personal Injury Lawyer can make good money. For that, he/she must have a few more clients rather than having only one.

Let’s do a breakup of a hypothetical settlement amount of $100,000 to understand it in a better way.

An example of a hypothetical settlement amount of $100,000 in a Personal Injury Case

Personal Injury Lawyer’s Fees – 40%-45% of $100,000

Personal Injury Lawyer’s payment comes from contingency fee contracts. This also covers their legal expertise.

Most of the time, they pay their money upfront for other cases. They also have to pay members of their staff.

In some cases, the fee has to be split between several firms/companies. This happens only in the case where there is a referring Personal Injury Lawyer involved.

For example, if we assume that your owed legal fees will be cut in half by two law firms. The two law firms are bound by a contract to divide the 40% contingent fee.

So, each firm will get $20,000. That means $20,000 will go to Firm A, and $20,000 will go to Firm B.

Legal expenses in a Personal Injury Case

Now, 40% of the total settlement amount has been paid as a contingency fee and 60% has been left.

$60,000 out of $100,000 is remaining. Your lawyer has to incur personal expenses too.

These are a few examples of legal expenses – deposition costs, expert fees, and costs for traveling.

There can be several thousand dollars to cover up the cost of legal expenses in any Personal Injury Cae.

Let’s say it costs around $18,000. 

Liens and medical expenses in a Personal Injury Case

After deducting the Personal Injury Lawyer’s legal fees and expenses, $42,000 out of $100,000 is remaining.

Now, clients have to finally pay the outstanding medical liens and expenses. The federal government and most states under the governing law require you to pay physicians, government agencies, and hospitals from the settlement amount.

The amount that a client needs to pay as liens and medical expenses can be around $33,000.

The final amount available to the client

Now, $9000 is remaining from $100,000 and it is the part of the client. This amount covers lost wages, pain, and suffering, and the time used to file the lawsuit.

In many cases, it also covers failed relationships with a significant other.

So a person doesn’t always file a suit to get rich but sometimes these lessons make sure that no one else ends up going through what they had to go through in their life.

So a Personal Injury case is not always about the settlement amount but it makes communities safer when plaintiffs stand their ground against lawbreakers.

When do Personal Injury Lawyers bill hourly?

When there is no insurance money involved in the Personal Injury Case, a lawyer bills on an hourly basis.

A lawyer works in a significant way by calculating their annual income. The per-hour rates of Personal Injury Lawyer are not very common these days but some lawyers still prefer to get paid on an hourly basis.

One of the reasons for lawyers charging on an hourly basis could be that they do not see the case ending on favorable terms.

Most of the time, Personal Injury Lawyers avoid at fault or partial fault type cases. After all, a case similar to this means it’s less likely insurance will pay, assuming there was coverage at all.

So, that’s the reason Personal Injury Lawyer chooses hourly billing in these cases because a percentage of nothing doesn’t give them a good return.

And also, this remains very true even if they can win the case for the client. Mostly, lawyers charge on an hourly basis when there is no insurance compensation.

In another way, they charge hourly is only when the Personal Injury Lawyer thinks the case is weak.

How much does a Personal Injury Lawyer make?

Around 25% to 26% of Personal Injury Lawyers do not work for a company or firm. It’s a practice-based profession and every Personal Injury Lawyer wants to make more significant profits from their profession.

It’s always beneficial for a flexible schedule if you are self-employed. The question, “How much does a Personal Injury Lawyer make?” also depends on the population in your area.

If a Personal Injury Lawyer lives in a populous city, it is obvious that he/she will get Personal Injury Clients very often.

Marketing also plays an important role in it. A Personal Injury Lawyer who does better marketing gets more clients.

These days people find the best Personal Injury Lawyers on the internet. Many Personal Injury Lawyers run google ads to get quality clients.

If you are a Personal Injury Lawyer and want to get noticed by quality clients, then please contact us to get listed on personalinjurylawyerhelp.us.

You will receive a ton of eyeballs looking for a Personal Injury Lawyer on daily basis.

I hope, you got your answer of How much does a Personal Injury Lawyer make? And things are more clear to you now.

Original link: Personal Injury Lawyer