Numerous clients over the years have asked me is it better for me to settle my case on my own or hire an attorney. The bottom line is the client is worried that after paying my attorney fee that they would have come out better by settling their case on their own.
Most of the time it is better to hire an attorney because the client usually gets more money in the settlement AFTER paying the attorney fee.
Let's take for example, the Trade Center Litigation. There were 5,560 claimants who chose to settle by themselves without hiring an attorney. They received $7,000,000,000.(that is seven billion).Just recently 92 families of victims of the WTC attack who were represented by lawyers settled for $500,000,000. That may seem like alot of money to you, but lets take a closer look at the settlements. 500 million divided by 92 equals $5,434,782 average per family. These were families who were represented by attorneys. The families who chose not to hire an attorney received an average of $1,258,992. The families represented by attorneys received about 4.3 times more money than the families who represented themselves.
The cases were filed against three airline companies and other defendants.
The insurance companies know this,the lawyers know this,but the clients usually do not know this. Of the 95 families who filed suit with an attorney, 92 settled before trial for the above amount;three families decided to go to trial. Who wants to guess how much money to jury will award in these three cases? Will it be more than $5,434,782 per family?
