038 How Much Does a Personal Injury Lawyer Cost?

VERONICA: Welcome to Lawyers in the House with Montlick. I’m your host Veronica Waters here with another fantastic episode for you as we get down to talking about the elephant in the personal injury room- money.

SARAH: I think 2014.

VERONICA: Did you start at Montlick?

SARAH: I did a brief stint at the district attorney’s office.

VERONICA: That’s right. You dipped your toes into prosecution.

SARAH: I did. And then quickly switched to the person… personal injury world.

VERONICA: All right.

SARAH: You know, I think we all want to find our own paths on our own, but the work that my dad does is very meaningful and direct. And at the end of the day, that’s what I wanted to do.

SARAH: I didn’t love it. It just wasn’t for me, and I have… I have a lot of respect for public defenders and assistant district attorneys. I think they do great work. It just wasn’t my calling.

VERONICA: And how did you know that? What was it that said, you know what, this isn’t the field for me. Let me try PI.

SARAH: I think the work that we do is just so direct and hands on and we’re speaking to our clients every day.

VERONICA: All right. So daddy had a lot of influence on you after all. And big brother.

SARAH: Yes. I do work with my brother, too. And we used to have offices next to each other, but it’s probably better that has changed.

VERONICA: Oh, I’d love to hear those stories. So yes, Sarah and her brother and her dad are all Montlick injury attorneys.

DOUG: Yes.

VERONICA: Man, his name is Doug Glosser.

DOUG: You got it.

VERONICA: Yeah, of course I got it. Listen, I’ve been practicing on this since the last time. Doug Glosser made his way to the halls of Montlick from Syracuse and Duquesne Law.

DOUG: You’re right.

VERONICA: Right.

DOUG: And I initially started with a different firm and found my way down here, just like Sarah did.

DOUG: Sort of. So I have a background in athletics for sure. And then when I was in law school and shortly before law school, I was working with some professional teams. And afterwards, I was like, what do I want to do? And I was like, you know what?

VERONICA: Now, tell me how this sort of knits in with your childhood and your inspiration of watching your uncle as an attorney when you were growing up. How does that all connect?

DOUG: Yeah, so it’s really similar to Sarah.

VERONICA: Yeah, now you’re that guy. And that’s maybe why your reputation is also of an attorney who is dedicated and relentless and compassionate. You had an early role model and you’ve brought that into your own career.

DOUG: Yeah. And I think we all have to like Sarah said, I think sometimes we all try to find our own path, but at the end of the day, we always come back to kind, of you know, what our core foundation is. And for me and seeing that growing up and just like Sarah said, it’s always about what can you do for somebody else, especially if you’re in a position to be an attorney and you have those kind of skills like, how can you pass that on or do good with it?

VERONICA: I love that. Doug Glosser and Sarah Neeland, thank you so much for being in the house with your girl Veronica here on Lawyers in the House. All right, now let’s be honest. Some folks say it is not polite to ask how much people make. In polite company, right? Not supposed to talk about it. But today we are among friends. And so we’re going to take a little bit of a peek. So as always, first things first, when people come to you, I’m going to ask the question.

SARAH: The great thing about what we do is that we don’t bill hourly. So if you don’t have money to pay us hourly, don’t worry about that. What we do is so accessible because we only take our fee if we’re able to recover for our clients. So we can do all this work on a case. And if it turns out later, that for some reason, there’s something about the case that we cannot win, then we’re not going to take a fee for all that work that we have done.

VERONICA: And that’s what it means to work on contingency. It’s got to feel then, to me the client, like maybe this gives me a little peace of mind, because I know you’re not going to take my case if you’re not pretty sure you’re going to win it.

DOUG: Yeah, absolutely. And like Sarah said, there’s kind of two big reasons that we work on contingency fees.

VERONICA: I love that. It’s free unless we win. We win.

DOUG: Yeah, yeah.

VERONICA: Not free for you guys, ’cause I’m sure you guys are doing something along the way, stroking checks along the way maybe to pay for services or bills or I don’t know what. You know what, let’s get into that. I’m not sure, how do y’all do that? How are you able to do that? We’re going to talk about that. But for me, free until and until a victory.

VERONICA: Yeah. So let me ask you a little bit about how you talk with your clients. First of all, if my case comes to you, how many hands does it have to pass through before it gets your eyeballs on it?

DOUG: So with our firm, the really great thing about it is with all of our intakes, you’re always going to be talking with an attorney. So if you call, you can talk, talk with Sarah.

SARAH: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we talk about this the same way that we’re talking about it now – that the contingency fee is something that we only take our fee if we’re able to recover. And it doesn’t matter how much work that we do on a case. Like you were mentioning before, Veronica, sometimes if there’s a case that we cannot win, if we have spent lots of money on the case, we’re not charging that to someone that we can’t help.

VERONICA: I don’t know if state to state there is this sort of framework or expected fee structure about how much personal injury attorneys will take as a percentage of fees.

SARAH: Right, we’re not sending a couple letters and just making a couple of phone calls. We’re really invested in your case.

VERONICA: So how intense do these cases actually get? Because let me tell you, after several months of doing these shows, it does sound like it’s a lot more than just, you know, a couple of phone calls and a signature.

DOUG: It’s very intense. So the one thing that I try to recognize… and I talk with folks a lot because the thing that I hear all the time is, do you guys even want to take my case? It doesn’t even to me, feel like a big… or seem like a big case or anything else like that.

VERONICA: Maybe it seems small to them, but it’s really big in your life. We’re on Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Coming up: are those online settlement calculators really any good? Stay with us.

You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick.

VERONICA: Welcome back to the money show on Lawyers in the House with Montlick. I’m your host, Veronica Waters here with Montlick injury attorneys Doug Glosser and Sarah Neeland talking about all of these sort of questions that you always had in the back of your mind when it comes to personal injury law, but were not really sure whom you could ask. So we’re asking these two fabulous attorneys about how the right lawyer can put more money in your pocket.

DOUG: You could be. So the one thing that’s important to recognize is that especially at the outset of a case, there’s really, really critical things that have to happen, right? And things that, if they aren’t done – I’m not going to say properly- but with mindfulness and intention and making sure that you’re doing the proper thing for the client, then almost everything else can kind of fall down later for the client, right?

VERONICA: One of these reduced fees attorneys?

DOUG: Perhaps, yeah, perhaps.

VERONICA: And now your case has gone kaput.

DOUG: Totally. And I had to be the bearer of bad news because he had no idea. And it’s a lot of these types of things that I wouldn’t expect anybody to just know or to have to double check with their attorney to do or something that a quick Google search or something like that can tell you about your case.

SARAH: I would say no. The reason being is because no one is going to be able to evaluate your case on a settlement calculator. That’s just something that the insurance company is relies on. And that takes the human component out. We are talking about your pain and suffering, we’re talking about all of… everything that goes into your case, your treatment, your injuries, is it permanent, have all of these things been evaluated in your case?

VERONICA: Personal injury is personal. Sarah Neeland and Doug Glosser from Montlick Injury Attorneys here on Lawyers in the House. We’ve got more to come, stay with us.

You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Join us 8 a.m. every Sunday on 95.5 WSB.

VERONICA: Welcome back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick here on WSB.

SARAH: Absolutely. That’s what we do. That’s what makes this so accessible to every person who’s involved in an accident. If we can help anyone, we’re that… we’re willing to take their case.

VERONICA: Now, I hear the word settlement all the time when we’re doing this show. Is that mean… does that mean that you’re, like, getting the case in and boom, you know, we’re speeding towards settlement? I mean, is settlement a dirty word?

DOUG: So it’s not necessarily dirty, but it’s something that you just want to be mindful of, right?

SARAH: You want to hire somebody that you trust. You want to make the best, most informed decision that you can on your specific case. So that… you want to make sure that you have a good relationship with your attorney. You don’t want someone who’s just going to quick and dirty, like you said, settle your case without doing some of the legwork that needs to be done that may increase your settlement.

VERONICA: So it’s almost like a settlement mill, if you will. Just get ‘em in, get ‘em out.

DOUG: Yeah, you want to be mindful of something like that because one of the things that insurance companies do is they’ll just flash cash in front of people’s face right when something happens.

VERONICA: All right, so let’s do something small and personal, like real talk.

DOUG: Yeah, for sure. So… and Sarah probably has a million of these examples as well.

VERONICA: She’s next.

DOUG: But one that sticks out to me is it involves a guy that was just checking his mail and it’s something that we do each and every day, right? And we don’t think that just a simple walk from your front door to your mailbox can be a life altering event, but for my client it was.

DOUG: Yeah, with that, these bills can be very expensive. And his were over a $1 million.

VERONICA: Whoa, 7 figure medical bills?

DOUG: Yes, absolutely. And with these cases, the thing that we had to figure out is, how can we get this gentleman back to good health, number one? And then number two, without owing all of this money and everything else? Because to divulge the settlement information, there was only $50,000 available.

VERONICA: Lawyersinthehouse.com.

DOUG: Yeah, exactly. So we had $50,000, and there’s a lot of attorneys that would say, okay, you know, we got the $50,000 in and they’ll help facilitate all that and send the demand and know if all you’re doing is just sending a couple of pieces of paper, then sure, that case, you could have got the $50,000 for that client. END 24:31 END

DOUG: Exactly. And there’ll be a lot of attorneys and a lot of firms, I think, that would, to them, they have done the work for that client, which is they got the settlement offer.

VERONICA: But you knew differently and what did you do?

DOUG: Right. So for him, our goal was maybe not necessarily getting the maximum because we did. But for him, it was, how do we get all these medical bills figured out, how do we take 5, you know, as they say, how do you take 8 pounds and put it in a 5-pound bucket, right?

VERONICA:  I’m sorry, one more time. Say that…

DOUG: From $1 million down to $13,000.

VERONICA: Is what you did for his medical bills?

DOUG: Exactly.

VERONICA: Stunning.

DOUG: Yes. So with him, was he walking away with every last… you know, with what I felt that would be fair for him? Of course not. But you need to understand… and your lawyer needs to have a conversation with you about what finances are available, what’s realistic, and what is there.

VERONICA: Because you never found the driver.

DOUG: You could never find the person. So the goal for that client was not just to get the maximum amount of compensation that was available, which we did, but it was to make sure that going forward, he’s not victimized essentially a second time by a mountain of medical bills that have his name on it.

SARAH: There’s a lot more. And a lot of things go into what values… what a person is worth, and what their lost income and their pain and suffering and how their whole family was affected.

DOUG: A ton.

SARAH: Or very similar, not exact same, but it’s just something that happens. And we go the extra… We go the extra mile. We take those extra steps. Even if it takes longer, even if we’re in the case for much, much longer, we’re doing that all to help our clients and maximize their recovery.

VERONICA: So that has got to require a lot of what? Negotiation back and forth with various and sundry folks?

VERONICA: Are you good at that?

SARAH: I think we all have to be good at that to keep our jobs.

VERONICA: I heard you’re relentless.

SARAH: It’s something that we do. It’s something that we do all day, every day is just picking up the phone and talking to people. And if we’re not, if we’re getting someone’s voicemail, you know, a million times, then we’re figuring out a way to get them on the phone. We’re tracking them down. We’re doing whatever we can, bottom line to help our clients.

VERONICA: So do you have something that sticks out in your head – a case that you wanted to share with us?

SARAH: Oh, yeah. I mean, there’s so many.

VERONICA: Is there ever a moment- Has there ever been a moment in your career where you thought, oh my gosh, we’re not going to make any money off of this case.

VERONICA: And so I think you’re probably, I’m guessing then guided by a certain principles, Sarah.

SARAH: Yeah, if you can help… if… we were taught, if you can help someone, take the case. Even if someone’s telling me that the insurance company has denied their claim, we will take that case if we think that we can win for them.

SARAH: Of course not. We’re here for our clients.

VERONICA: All right. Coming up next, the Montlick closing argument is straight ahead and we’ll talk about why transparency matters in cases like this. This is Lawyers in the House with Sarah Neeland and Doug Glosser from Montlick Injury Attorneys. I’m your host Veronica Waters. Be right back.

You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick.

VERONICA: Welcome back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick. I’m your host Veronica Waters here with Montlick injury attorneys Sara Neeland and Doug Glosser, talking about fees and money. It’s the money show and we know it’s been kind of a complicated topic. So right off the bat, I want to tell you, if you’ve got questions, don’t be afraid to just shoot them our way.

SARAH: Mainly, I think one of the things that anyone can take away from this is you want to have transparency with your attorney. You want to know if you are even considering accepting an offer, you want to know what, down to the penny, that’s going to look like.

VERONICA: All right, so you know what, you mentioned check, and I say check too, like stroke of check.

SARAH: You get a check.

DOUG: Our firm gives out checks. I’m sure there are other firms that will do something a little bit differently.

VERONICA: So it’s a one… one check or do I get a series of checks like every month or something?

DOUG: So typically when you settle your case, you are settling it and you are getting one check. And that’s why when we’re discussing settlement, you always want to make sure that your attorney is giving you an itemization of everything that’s going on. Believe it or not, I’ve heard of situations where the attorney just says, this is the offer, and someone says sounds great.

VERONICA: All right, one more thing before say goodbye. I asked earlier, how do you guys pay for things along the way?

DOUG: So for necessary things to bring your best case, like getting your medical records, anything that we need to present your best case, the law firm will advance those costs for the client.

VERONICA: And then it’s all down to the letter when you are talking to the client about the fees?

SARAH: We will always itemize these case expenses for our clients.

VERONICA: All right! You only get one chance to make a first impression and only, most of the time, one time to pick a personal injury lawyer who’s right for you. It’s your day in court. Don’t sell yourself short. This is Lawyers in the House with Montlick. I’m your host Veronica Waters. See you next time.

You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick, catch us live every Sunday, 8 a.m. on 95.5 WSB.