Video Transcription
Hi. I’m Roger Ghai and I’m an accident attorney practicing primarily in Cobb County. I handled a lot of cases in Acworth and Kennesaw. I wanted to talk today about a question that I frequently get which is, “I can’t afford you Mr. Ghai because I don’t have any money.” Let’s talk about that for a moment. Number one is lawyers usually take these on- these types of accident cases whether it’s a malpractice case or slip-and-fall case or just a simple car accident case.
We take them on what we call a contingency fee basis and that means this. That we do not charge you as a client if you come into our office and sign an attorney-client agreement for representation. We don’t charge unless we actually recover. Typically, what will happen is the attorney fees, if no lawsuit has to be filed are one-third of the total recovery. If the lawsuit does have to be filed and you go all the way through trial, typically the attorney fees are 40% of the total.
Rest assured if you’ve got a case and you’re just really hesitant to contact a lawyer because you just don’t have the financial means to go ahead and pay somebody, rest assured that should not be a concern if you’re calling any lawyer including me. The other issue in the case is this. That sometimes clients wonder who pays the litigation expenses. Typically, what happens is this. Let’s say a lawsuit does have to be filed, that means litigation expenses.
Normally, the lawyer will actually forward those litigation expenses in your case and then get recovery for those expenses that he or she put out once the case settles or once there’s a verdict in the case. Typically and a typical case, you might have deposition costs, the cost of filing the lawsuit, all of that. Most lawyers are just going to go ahead and pay those expenses as the case proceeds and then, do the accounting of the final proceeds once the case is resolved.
Again, if you have any concerns that you’re not financially able to pay the litigation expenses or pay a lawyer to go ahead and represent you on this type of a case, call my office at 770-792-1000. I think that you’ll find that we’re very easy to work with.
