Today on Inside Look by Brooks, Steve Brooks talks about Brooks Law Group’s no fee promise for our clients.
Find us on:
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brookslawgroup/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/BrooksLawGroup
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/_brookslawgroup
Introduction
Good afternoon! Welcome to Friday’s Inside Look by Brooks. It’s a beautiful day here in Florida; low humidity and very cool weather. Very nice! So, I have a little bit of laryngitis today, but I’m going to try to make it through. Today’s topic is, we here at the Brooks Law Group have a “No Fee Promise,” and when you think of an attorney, you normally don’t think “No attorney’s fee.” You think, I’m going to have to come up with some money and give it to the attorney up front before he takes my case. That’s simply not the case with us.
Brooks Law Group’s No Fee Promise
You know, when I first started practicing law, I went to work for a law firm that did it the old fashion way: when the client came in, they paid a consultation fee of $100 – $150 and then if I agreed to represent them, we would draw a retainer agreement and they would deposit several thousand dollars, which we would then put in a trust account and bill against, but it required the client to come up with money. So, the way we practice law, here at the Brooks Law Group, is on a contingency basis. So, you never will owe us an attorney fee, you never will have to pay us back for any of the costs it takes to prosecute your case unless we recover money for you. Sometimes, in heavily litigated cases, where there is questionable liability that, those cases can go on for more than two or three years. That’s rare, but we have had cases go on for four or five years. Where we have actually written checks to pay for doctors to testify, pay for deposition transcripts, medical records. You know, well we’ve had tens of thousands of dollars invested in a case and put hundreds of man hours in a case and not get paid until we actually have the trial, we survive an appeal, and then the insurance company pays us. Only then would you ever owe a fee and only then would you have to repay us any costs. Most cases have, or do not take that long most of the time. We can resolve cases; it’s dependent on your treatment. We can’t… If you’re injured in an accident and you’re still treating with a doctor, and the doctor says after three months “You need more treatment,” we don’t want to try and settle with the insurance companies while you’re still treating because we don’t know the full measure of your damages. The completion of the treatment will tell us the full measure of your damages. So, we’d be selling you short if we tried to resolve a case before you completed treatment, and followed all of your doctor’s recommendations in terms of referrals to specialists or physical therapists and those kinds of things. So, the bottom line is, normally a soft tissue case will take between 6 months and a year to resolve, if your treatment is concluded between 4 to 5 months up to a year. If it’s a more serious injury where you require surgery, normally the doctors will rule out the smaller soft tissue injuries earlier, and it takes time to get to the part where those are ruled out, and then the evidence is developed for the more significant injury that requires surgery. So, sometimes those cases can take into the years, but normally even a surgical case can be resolved in a year or two depending on the length of your treatment. So, once you complete your treatment, then we can compile all of the evidence and do what we need to do to make the most compelling presentation to the insurance company to try and resolve your case, and all of this is on our dime. When you come in, when you hire us you don’t owe us a penny, you don’t have to sign a promissory note. You don’t do anything, but follow our direction in terms of making sure you complete all of your medical treatment. Your main job is to focus on getting better medically and let us worry about spending money, and hiring experts, hiring accident reconstructionist, getting your medical records, going to depositions, paying for the doctors to testify. Those are the kinds of things we do that we pay for and only expect repayment if we get results. So, if we go to trial and we get no results, you never have to pay us a dime.
Why Brooks Law Group Chooses To Use A No Fee Promise
There are other firms out there that don’t operate that way. We just don’t think it’s fair that you have to come up with money up front. In law school they use to call this, “Contingency cases give the average man the key to the court house,” because even though you may not have money to be able to come and give me a $5,000 – $10,000 retainer, because you don’t have to do that because you’re entering into a contingency fee basis. It does really two things: it gives you access to the court house without you having to put up any money and it gives you a really motivated attorney because if we’re operating, and we don’t get paid unless we get results. Guess what we want to get, and we want to get them as fast as we can? Results, because we don’t get paid until we do that. Whereas an hourly attorney who charges by the hour, he actually can potentially profit by dragging things out. We never profit by dragging things out. The only time we will tell you “Slow down, it’s got to drag out,” is when you’re still treating. When you’re still treating, there’s nothing we can do to cause your claim to be faster through the system because we don’t want to short you, and we don’t want to undersell you if you have legitimate injuries that require additional treatment with other specialists. We want to wait and see what your full measure of damage is. So, there are other types of fee agreements. Most lawyers have typically operated on the hourly retainer where you come in and give them money up front. There’s a new trend in law, especially in areas like divorce/family law where a lawyer, instead of charging by the hour, they may charge a flat fee for a certain portion of the case. Like, for a simple divorce they may charge a thousand dollars, plus costs, but again you have to give that money up front. As far as I know, on the contingency basis is the only type of fee arrangement where the client can access the services of an attorney and their entire staff and financial resources, their history of success for no money upfront. That’s the way we do it. We’re motivated to succeed and get results because we only get paid if that happens.
Conclusion
So, I hope that gives you a good idea of what a contingency fee arrangement is and how we operate, and why we have a “No Fee Promise.” If we don’t get results, you will never owe us a fee, and not only do we have a “No Fee Promise,” we have a “No Cost, No Fee Promise.” You will never have to pay for any of the hard costs that we expend in prosecuting your case if we don’t get results for you. So, if you have any questions feel free to contact me. My email address is [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. I hope everybody enjoys this beautiful weekend. We have about 10 or 15 of our staff gathering together tomorrow morning at 7:30 to run an 8 o’clock race – a 5K I won’t be there. I’m not a morning person, so I’ll be cheering them on when I wake up at about 9:30, but it is a beautiful weekend. I hope everyone enjoys the wonderful weather. Be safe, be kind, look forward to seeing you next week. Shoot me an email if you have any questions. Steve Brooks with the Brooks Law Group. We are a practice throughout the state of Florida with offices in Tampa, Winter Haven, Lakeland, and Auburndale, but we take cases throughout the state. We have investigators, we are also very technologically savvy and will work with you throughout the state. Have a good weekend. Thank you for joining us. See you next Friday at three o’clock.
