Attorneys Fees

Any good attorney’s fees in a case that relates to the Jones Act depend upon obtaining a settlement or judgment in the case.  The attorney will have many expenses from their firm in the pursuit of your case but most will guarantee that, if your claim is not made, you will not have any out of pocket expenses to cover the effort they have put into the case. In the event that your judgment or claim is upheld, however, the fees for the lawyer’s expenses and resources expended will come out of that claim. Their fee is usually 33 1/3 % if a settlement is reached before a suit has to be filed, and 40% afterwards. These set rates are their fees but there are many other expenses that may come out of the client’s share of the settlement; including filing and jury fees and the obtaining and hiring of the services of various experts to work on the case.

Attorneys’ fees may seem steep to some but the return value is enormous. Without the hiring of an attorney trained and educated in the Jones Act, it is more than likely that you will receive nothing, or next to nothing, in terms of compensation for your injury while working at sea. The employers will have many people working on their side to pressure you into signing and swearing away any rights to make a claim and maintaining your good health and, all the while, you could be doing yourself more harm by not seeing a qualified medical professional. Employers will often have a doctor on staff whose job is to make sure you are healthy but certainly his bias is going to be in favor of the employers. Obviously, the doctor is employed by them and does not want them losing any money on a case. Now, those attorney fees don't seem so expensive when you realize that, in return for them, you will have the advice of a trained legal team to ensure that you are not taken advantage of in this fashion by your employer.

Attorney fee's also often exclude such basic expenses that their office may have such as the shipping of documents and long distance phone calls related to the case. Many high quality law firms will not calculate these things to your individual bill and simply judge them as the case of doing business on a daily basis. Some lawyers will also offer loans, where allowed by law, to a client. This helps the client to maintain their way of life while waiting for the settlement or claim to come through and the loan can be paid as part of the attorney fees after the final payment is received. This isn't allowed by law in all jurisdictions but, where it is, it can be an excellent tool for helping to ease the burden placed on employee who has been injured while working at sea. The time after an injury is sustained can be very difficult, with the lack of a paycheck coming in and all of the immediate medical expenses and this sort of loan can help to relieve that pressure in the short term.