At DLE lawyers, you don’t need to worry about “billable hours.” After all, not everyone can afford to pay a lawyer two or three hundred dollars an hour. At our firm, we have arranged our fee structure so that you don’t need a dime to retain us. Not only are our initial consultations are free of charge, but you will never owe us a dime, ever, unless we win your case.
You might wonder how we can afford to do this. After all, it means that if we lose your case, we work for free. And who can afford to work for free? Well, we can, and the reason is that we win our clients’ cases so much of the time, there is no reason for us to worry about “working for free” on the relatively rare occasions that we lose. It’s just not an issue with us.
So what happens if we win? Well, if we win, we wait until your money actually arrives in the bank. We then deduct a pre-agreed percentage of the total amount, and then forward the remainder to you. This fee structure protects you because it guarantees that our legal bill will not exceed the amount you win.
Adversaries, Allies and Incentive Structures
It is likely that your compensation will come from an insurance company. Consider the difference in the incentive structure between your relationship with the insurance company (either yours or the defendant’s) and your relationship with us:
- An insurance company makes its money by charging its policyholders monthly premiums the more premiums they receive, the more money they make. An insurance company loses money by paying out claims — and the more they pay out, the more they lose. This gives them a financial incentive to bargain down your claim value or deny it altogether. In other words, once you make a claim, the insurance company is your natural enemy, like a lion and a gazelle.
- At DLE Lawyers, we make money by winning a large amount of compensation for you — and the more money you make, the more money we make. On the other hand, your loss is our loss, since we don’t get paid unless you do too. This fee structure gives us the financial incentive to win as much as we can for you — which put us on the same side, because our financial interests are in harmony with each other.
What does it mean for us to “win” your case?
We win your case when you win money, either in court or at the settlement table. If a court rules in your favor, for example, we count it as a victory. If, on the other hand, your case is settled out of court with a negotiated settlement agreement, you win if a settlement is reached. Upwards of 90 percent of our car accident clients receive out of court settlements.
Don’t worry if you are not an expert negotiator, because we are, and we will be more than happy to do the negotiating for you. We know all of the tricks that insurance adjusters like to use to reduce the value of a car accident claim, and we won’t fall for a single one of them.