blog home Personal Safety Ken explains the firm’s “Zero Fee Guarantee” and how it can help you

Ken explains the firm’s “Zero Fee Guarantee” and how it can help you

By Beth Gibson on March 26, 2019

GibsonSingleton Virginia Injury Attorneys has a “Zero Fee Guarantee,” meaning that if you’re injured in an accident and want us to represent you, you pay nothing upfront to file a personal injury claim. During a recent interview, partner Ken Gibson explained:

How does your “Zero Fee Guarantee” work?

Ken: “That’s a big question that we get from our clients who come in for the first time, ‘How much is this going to cost me?’ And one of the positives of a case—if there are positives to being injured in a personal injury case—is that you don’t have to put money upfront to pay your lawyer.

“We operate on what’s called a contingency fee basis. This means that our payment is a percent of what we obtain for you, either from a settlement, or from a verdict at trial. Generally, our fee is 33.3 percent of whatever we’re able to recover for you. For medical malpractice cases our fee is 40 percent, due to the complexity of those cases.

“We also pay all of your upfront costs. There’s a lot of litigation costs in an injury claim: for court reporters, to create exhibits, to mail documents back and forth among the attorneys, to hire expert witnesses, etc.”

Notes: A fee isn’t the same thing as a cost in a personal injury case. A fee is what a lawyer charges to represent you, and pays for his time investigating your accident, researching case law specific to your case, and writing and reviewing paperwork for the insurance companies and the court.

 A cost includes things like the out-of-pocket expenses of filing a lawsuit or taking a deposition, or “administrative” expenses for making copies of transcripts, delivering paperwork, requesting a copy of the police report, and more. For example, if we hire an expert witness to testify about your injuries, she will need to be paid for her time and expertise. That’s a cost.

What can a person do who’s injured and needs help but doesn’t have extra money to spend on a lawyer or the case?

Ken: “Many clients come in, and they’re in financial distress. Due to their injuries, they’re out of work, they’re losing wages, and they’re very concerned about their medical bills. All of those costs we pay upfront, and then we reimburse ourselves at the end of the case. So the way we structure our charges is a real blessing to our clients, because they are not having to write us a check at the start of the case.”

Note: It’s even more of a blessing when you consider how much money it takes to file a claim for the average car accident. A simple case may settle in a few months, and only require a few thousand dollars in upfront costs. John and Ken always try to negotiate claims as quickly and efficiently as possible to keep these costs low, and always consider these costs when guiding you to accept an offer.

However, if the other insurance company won’t offer the money our clients need, GibsonSingleton will take the case to trial. A trial can result in costs in the tens of thousands of dollars or more for clients, but it will cost much more for the insurance company, because they have to pay their lawyers hourly.

The good news is, by being ready to fight your case in trial, we can usually get the insurance company to agree to a fair settlement outside of trial. In rare circumstances, if the jury determines that the insurance company acted in “bad faith” when dealing with you, they will even be on the hook for paying our attorney fees in Virginia.

To find out more about GibsonSingleton Virginia Injury Attorneys’ Zero Fee Guarantee, call our Gloucester office at (804) 413-6777.