Vlog: Client Contract #4 - Litigation Costs

Transcription:

Hey guys, it's Matt. This is going to be part four, litigation costs and expenses. I talked earlier about parts and labor. This section of the case are your parts. There's a lot of parts when we talk about a lawsuit, we have to pay court fees, we have to pay experts, we have to pay deposition fees, and medical records. There's a million things that we have to pay for and it is the lawyer, who at their discretion, is going to pay for those things. But at the end of the day, just like the auto mechanic, it's your car. The parts are going into your car. They're going into your case. It's not my case, it's your case. 

So yes, while the lawyer is doing you a huge favor by giving you a free loan to fight your case and pay all the costs up front, it's going to get reimbursed from the settlement. And that is separate from the percentage that the lawyer is charging for their time. So that's litigation costs and expenses. Again, there's not much we can guarantee for your case, but there is a very strong promise here that the client will not be responsible for any costs unless there is a recovery or a settlement. Sometimes a client will say, "Oh my gosh, well I'm really nervous that I'm going to owe a bunch of money from my case. You know, am I going to owe any money for the cost in the case?" And the answer to that question is no. The lawyers fronting all that and the lawyers risking all that. And if we don't win your case or if we decide to drop your case and not move forward, I'm not going to ask you to pay it back at that. That's my cost of doing business. And again, that guarantee is why the percentage is so high at the end of the day. 

The other thing here in the contract is I promise to keep the client updated as to their costs. Usually I'll send out a monthly update of, Hey, here's the money we spent or we'll talk about it that way. You know what's going on in your case. The funny part is I feel like when a client is hiring a lawyer, the client is very concerned that the lawyer is going to spend too much money fighting their case. Ironically, that is usually not the problem. The problem is a lawyer who cheaps out and doesn't pay all the costs and doesn't do everything that they should be doing to win your case. So ironically, the client should be asking the lawyer, are you going to spend the money that you need to spend to win my case?