Many people come into my office every day wondering how exactly an attorney gets paid for the work they do. There are three main types of fees that attorneys charge in order to get paid. These types are the contingency fee, the flat fee, and the hourly fee.

In all of these types of fees, costs may or may not be included. So a question that someone speaking to an attorney needs to ask is, "Am I going to be responsible for costs on top of your fee?"

A contingency fee means that the attorney does not get paid unless he collects for you. You hear of these a lot of times on commercials during late night TV and see them on attorney websites and in the Yellow Pages. A contingency fee is the type most-used in a personal injury case.

The second type of fee is the flat fee. A flat fee is where the attorney charges a flat amount to represent you in your legal problem. This takes some of the guess work out of how much you are going to owe the attorney for his services. Again, you need to ask if costs are included because those can be a surprise when you see them on your bill.

The third type is an hourly fee. An hourly fee is where the attorney charges a certain rate per hour that he works on your case. This could be a little, or this could be a lot depending on the amount of work involved, so it could be a big surprise when you get a bill for more than what you think it should be.

There are variations on these three types of fees, but these are the main types of fees that attorneys charge. The important thing to remember is that before your retain an attorney, have them explain to you exactly how their fee is going to be calculated and how much you are going to owe for representation.

This week, a potential auto accident client called our office with the question, "I have been in an accident and have medical bills. What insurance company do I submit the bills to?"

This is a question that we get all the time with people in our office. You don’t feel like your health insurance should cover it with your deductibles because it's the other guy's fault.

The reality is that when you are hurt in an accident, you need to seek treatment as soon as possible. If you have health insurance, it is wise to use your health insurance to pay your medical bills as they come up. In the long run, you end up paying less that way as well. Your health insurance company has a contracted rate with your medical providers so that the insurance company only pays a portion of the amount billed, and the rest is written off or discounted by your doctors. When your claim is settled, your health insurance company will have the right to be reimbursed for the amount they actually paid, the contracted rate, to your doctors. So basically, if you use your own health insurance, more of the settlement monies in the case will go directly to you rather than all of your doctors.

You already have a lot to deal with after an auto accident. You are receiving medical treatment, you are missing work, and you are trying to get your car fixed or replaced. It can relieve a little bit of stress off of you by having your health insurance worry about paying your medical bills and you can take time to recover.

I receive calls regularly about what people think is a medical malpractice case. In many of these cases, they can't put their finger on what it was, but they know that they were treated badly, whether by the nursing staff or by the doctors themselves.

Unfortunately, cases like these are not always medical malpractice cases. In a vast majority of cases the conduct only amounts to bad bedside manner. Unfortunately, even outrageously poor bedside manner cannot be considered when determining if a doctor committed malpractice in treating you. Sometimes the doctor is a jerk and they basically just treat you badly. Many times they may use foul language or slurs towards you. Unfortunately, that just doesn't matter when it comes to a medical malpractice case.

For a malpractice case, we have to prove that the doctor was careless in the actual treatment of you and breached the medical standard of care. To do this, we have to have other doctors testify that what they did was wrong and was up to the standard of care, not just bad bedside manner.

That’s not to say that where there is smoke there is no fire. Many times the bad bedside manner can be a symptom of the same types of issues that give rise to medical malpractice. So if you have a bad feeling, it never hurts to contact an attorney to see if you might have a case.

People always wonder what an attorney can do for them in a personal injury case. While every case is different, here is a list of many of the things that we do for our clients in a personal injury case.

• Initial interview with the client
• Educate you about personal injury claims
• Gather documents and evidence including police reports and medical records and bills
• Analyze your insurance policy to see if there are any coverages you have that may pay all or a portion of your medical bills or your claims pending
• Interview known witnesses
• Collect other evidence such as photographs and facts of the scene and car
• Analyze legal issues such as contributory negligence, assumption of the risk, and the last clear chance doctrine
• Talk to your doctors or obtain written reports from them so we can fully understand your condition
• Look at your health insurance policy to find out if any money that they spent to pay your bills must be repaid - this is called subrogation
• Look to see if any liens on the case are valid
• Contact your insurance company to let them know about the claim
• Decide with you if it's best to negotiate with the insurance company or file suit
• Prepare yourself, witnesses, and doctors for deposition if a suit is filed
• Prepare written questions and answers and take the depositions of the other side and their witnesses
• Produce to the other side all important information that they need such as medical bills and medical records
• Prepare for trial and/or settlement
• Prepare you and witnesses for trial
• Organize medical exhibits for trial
• Organize demonstrative exhibits for trial, i.e. video, PowerPoint, and big boards
• Prepare for any mediation
• File briefs and motions with the court to eliminate any surprises that may come at trial
• Try the case in front of a judge or jury
• When the verdict comes back, we look at it to see if it gives us good grounds to appeal the case
• Make recommendations to you about whether or not to appeal the case

These are just some of the things that we do for our clients throughout the negotiation and litigation processes.

You hear commercials on late-night and daytime TV with lawyers saying they do personal injury cases, accident cases, or wrongful death cases. But what does this actually mean? Well, a personal injury, or accident case is any type of claim where a person has been injured due to someone else's carelessness. A wrongful death case is any type of claim where a person was killed due to someone else’s carelessness.

If you were in your car at the time of the accident and your car has been damaged but you are okay, then you might have a property damage case for your car, but you do not have a personal injury case. In our office, we don't handle property damage cases. We only handle personal injury cases. So if you are hurt, we can help you. If not, while we do not handle your type of case, we know many lawyers that do. You can give us a call and we can help you find someone who can help you.

If someone's negligence causes someone to die, then that is a wrongful death claim. Wrongful death claims have different laws which separate them from your typical accident case. When speaking with an attorney, make sure the attorney understands the differences between them.