Have you been bitten by a dog? Are you tired of the medical bills, lost time at work, and inconvenience that the dog bite has added to your life? Do you feel the need to get a fair amount of compensation for that dog bite incident from the canine’s owner?
If so, then you need to get a dog bite lawyer ASAP who will fight for you in civil court.
In this article, we’re going to take a look at how much a dog bite lawyer usually costs. That way, you have a good handle on whether the legal fees will be worth it for your specific situation.
Dog Bite Lawyer Cost Structure
The first thing to keep in mind as we begin this discussion on legal costs is that different lawyers have different fee structures.
Some dig bite lawyers will work on a contingency basis. What this means is that the lawyer is paid a percentage of the compensation that you are due if you win the case. If you lose the case, you don’t have to pay any money.
The good part of this fee structure is that there is no risk of assuming cost for a lawyer if the case falters and you don’t get the result you were looking for. However, the caveat is that the chunk of change that the lawyer takes from your settlement can often be very significant, so it can be expensive if you get rewarded a lot of compensation.
The other common type of fee structure is a retainer or hourly billing. In the first case, you pay a set amount for the service. In the latter, you pay a set amount for every hour that the lawyer works on your case.
If you aren’t 100% confident of winning the suit, then the contingency basis fee is the way to go.
Dog Bite Lawyer Costs
Now that you have a better understanding about the cost structure for a dog bite lawyer, we can talk about what to expect in terms of the actual amount of money.
As a general rule, legal advice is going to cost you in the range of a couple of hundreds of dollars an hour. This is for the situation where you’re working on a retainer or hourly basis. Each case will likely take a few hours to prepare for and present in court, so expect to pay upwards of a thousand dollars in lawyer fees.
In the case of the contingency fee, it’s not uncommon for lawyers to take up to a third of the settlement. This is because of the risk that they assume in not getting paid unless they win.
Do You Need a Dog Bite Lawyer?
There you have it. Equipped with this guide to dog bite lawyer costs, you should now have a great understanding of whether or not you can justify the cost of a dog bite lawyer against the potential winnings of a settlement.
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