Spinal cord injuries and paralysis
The main fight in a paralysis, wheel-chair dependence claim is not about whether you deserve 24/7 attendant care, as usually you deserve it. The main fight is about who caused the accident, so that the party who caused the accident and paralysis will have to pay proportionally to his or her degree of responsibility, or as we say it in legalese his or her degree of "liability". So, if the cause of the accident or injury is obvious (such as you were a passenger in a motor vehicle collision, then obviously one or all of the drivers caused the accident, not you as a passenger, usually) then you do not have this big fight on liability.
Then, if there is no big fight on liability in a paralysis case that results in wheelchair dependence, the key consideration for fairness then moves to the amount of legal fees that you should agree to pay. Where there is no big fight on liability, and where damages are fairly easy to prove in a wheelchair dependence case, there remains not as much work to be done by an experienced lawyer to warrant the usual legal fees which is usually expressed as a percentage of the damages recovered in a settlement.
You may wish to consider asking the lawyer to reduce her normal percentage for fees in the contingency retainer agreement, (a) if liability is not an issue and (b) if there is not as much work to obtain the maximum insurance policy limits. Given your anticipated lifetime of suffering and losses, and relatively reduced workload by your lawyer, some reduction of fees may be warranted in such a case.
A reduction of the total typical legal fees may be fair and reasonable where there is no trial or arbitration having taken place, and even more reasonable if the scheduled trial or substantive arbitration is still more than one year away, meaning much trial preparation work is not yet done. However, this reduction may not be as fair or as reasonable in cases where both liability and damages are hotly contested and where much trial preparation work has been required. Please note that the above comments are directed only to wheelchair-bound paraplegia or quadriplegia injury victims, because their damages are easily seen and are less likely to be contested.
The main fight in a paralysis, wheel-chair dependence claim is not about whether you deserve 24/7 attendant care, as usually you deserve it. The main fight is about who caused the accident, so that the party who caused the accident and paralysis will have to pay proportionally to his or her degree of responsibility, or as we say it in legalese his or her degree of "liability". So, if the cause of the accident or injury is obvious (such as you were a passenger in a motor vehicle collision, then obviously one or all of the drivers caused the accident, not you as a passenger, usually) then you do not have this big fight on liability.
Then, if there is no big fight on liability in a paralysis case that results in wheelchair dependence, the key consideration for fairness then moves to the amount of legal fees that you should agree to pay. Where there is no big fight on liability, and where damages are fairly easy to prove in a wheelchair dependence case, there remains not as much work to be done by an experienced lawyer to warrant the usual legal fees which is usually expressed as a percentage of the damages recovered in a settlement.
You may wish to consider asking the lawyer to reduce her normal percentage for fees in the contingency retainer agreement, (a) if liability is not an issue and (b) if there is not as much work to obtain the maximum insurance policy limits. Given your anticipated lifetime of suffering and losses, and relatively reduced workload by your lawyer, some reduction of fees may be warranted in such a case.
A reduction of the total typical legal fees may be fair and reasonable where there is no trial or arbitration having taken place, and even more reasonable if the scheduled trial or substantive arbitration is still more than one year away, meaning much trial preparation work is not yet done. However, this reduction may not be as fair or as reasonable in cases where both liability and damages are hotly contested and where much trial preparation work has been required. Please note that the above comments are directed only to wheelchair-bound paraplegia or quadriplegia injury victims, because their damages are easily seen and are less likely to be contested.