One rear-end collision, one claim followed all the way from the first phone call to the signed release, written up so the next person can see the shape of it. Nothing here is legal advice, and state rules vary widely.
The number most people remember from the first meeting is the percentage, usually a third, sometimes a flat 33.33 percent, occasionally 35 in a state where that is the local custom. The number that decides what lands in the client's account is a longer arithmetic problem involving case costs, medical liens, unpaid balances at the imaging center, and whether the file settled with a phone call or after a deposition. A careful reader works that arithmetic in the parking lot, before signing, using the firm's own agreement and a hypothetical settlement figure the lawyer is willing to name out loud.
What the percentage is actually paying for
The fee buys labor and risk, and the labor is mostly correspondence. Requesting records from every treating provider, chasing the ones that ignore the first two requests, assembling a demand package with the police report and the wage documentation, arguing with an adjuster about whether six weeks of chiropractic care was reasonable, checking the property damage photographs against the injury claim before the adjuster does it first. The risk is that none of it gets paid. A contingency agreement means the firm carries the file for months or years and collects nothing if liability fails, which is why the percentage looks large next to an hourly rate that would have produced a smaller bill on an easy claim.
Costs are a separate line, and the order matters
Case costs are not inside the fee. Medical records charges, the accident report, filing fees if suit is brought, service of process, court reporter charges for depositions, and expert or treating physician fees for testimony are advanced by the firm and reimbursed out of the settlement. On a claim resolved before suit, costs are often modest, a few hundred dollars in records and report fees. On a filed case they can run into thousands, and a retained biomechanical or life care expert can move the number further still. The question worth asking directly is whether the fee is calculated on the gross settlement or on the settlement net of costs, because that single choice changes the client's take by hundreds of dollars on a mid-sized case and by more on a large one.
The step-up when suit is filed
Most agreements are tiered. A common structure is a third if the claim resolves before a lawsuit is filed, forty percent once suit is filed or once the case is set for trial, and sometimes a higher tier for appeal. The trigger language deserves a slow read: some agreements step up at filing, some at the answer, some only when a trial date is entered, and the difference determines whether a case that settles two weeks after the complaint is filed costs the client an extra seven percent. Ask what the firm's practice is on filing suit near the statute of limitations, since a file allowed to age into a filing raises the fee for reasons that have nothing to do with the claim's merits.
The hourly alternative most people never ask about
Plenty of firms that handle injury work on contingency will also sit for a paid consultation, typically an hour, at an hourly rate that varies widely by market and by the lawyer's seniority. That purchase is a second opinion: whether the medical documentation supports the complaint being made, whether the adjuster's offer is inside the range for that injury in that county, whether a lien from a health plan or a Medicare interest is going to consume the difference. Some lawyers will also review a written offer for a flat fee. Neither arrangement transfers the file, and both leave the claimant negotiating, which is the point when the claim is small enough that a third would exceed what representation adds. The Internal Revenue Service governs how the resulting proceeds are treated for tax purposes, and that treatment is worth confirming before the money is spent.
Where handling the adjuster yourself holds up
Self-handling is defensible when liability is admitted, the injuries are soft tissue and fully resolved, treatment is closed, the bills are documented, and there is no lien apparatus to untangle. Property damage alone almost never needs a lawyer. Claims involving disputed fault, a commercial vehicle, surgery, a permanent impairment rating, a minor, a wrongful death, or an underinsured motorist layer are a different category, because the valuation questions get technical fast and the adjuster on the other side handles them daily.
The useful test before signing is to write out one settlement figure and walk it through the agreement line by line, fee, costs, liens, balance, and see whether the last number still makes sense.