[Music] Welcome to the Auto Accident Attorneys podcast brought to you by the Auto Accident Attorneys Group where our motto is simple, we take care of you. I'm your host attorney Ali. And while we're known for helping people navigate the aftermath of auto accidents, this podcast is about much, much more. Yeah, you'll find episodes about how to deal with insurance adjusters and tips for preventing accidents in the first place or what to do after an accident. But we don't stop there. This show is about taking care of people in every way we can. That means talking about topics that impact your everyday life. From how to do your laundry appropriately so that your whites stay crispy crispy clean to picking a barber that gives you a sharp sharp fade. Where are we? Shout out at Gabriel. Gabriel, I wish I would have remembered your uh handle, but shout out Commodore. Anyways, here each episode is designed to offer thoughtful, often overlooked advice to help you stay informed, empowered, and cared for. Whether you're dealing with an accident or simply trying to navigate your life and your community, because at the end of the day, taking care of you isn't just something we say. It's truly what we do. We live it. When I say we, I mean everyone in this firm. That includes my sister, Attorney Holly. Attorney Holly put out an episode last week and we got some social media clips out there online and out of everything we've ever posted, this seems to be the most controversial one. We got a ton of comments, got a ton of DMs, got a ton of I don't know if I want to call it hate, but um you know, that's that's the nature of the beast on uh on online here. Let me let me play this out for you and see. Let me get everyone caught up. This is what Holly posted on socials. The idea that the attorney is there to take your money couldn't be further from the truth. And in fact, I think it's the only service when you are getting paid at the end of the day and you are not paying anything. You don't walk into a nail salon and ask them for your nails done in a trek at the end. You know, you got to pay them. What is it like 50 bucks for a fancy manicure these days? You do not pay us. It's pretty beautiful thing. The idea that the attorney fancy fancy manicure. Now listen, obviously we know that you are paying us. The point of this video though is to delve into the whole process of contingency fees. It's not as if it's a commission. And I think that's where people get hung up where that's why you want to look for the cheapest rate attorney. Let's say one attorney is offering to represent you for 40%, the other attorney is offering to represent you for 25%. So you're like, "Well, I'm going to go for the 25% attorney." Because in your mind, when you're approaching that decision as a consumer, you're thinking about it as a commission. The easiest thing that you have to compare it to is a real estate transaction. You're about to sell your house. You're going to hire an agent or a broker to sell your house. One wants to take 40%, one wants to take 25%. That's a no-brainer because your house is a set amount. You're going to list it at $800,000 already. You know that that's not the case in a personal injury settlement. Your case doesn't have a dollar value assigned to it at the very beginning. it's not worth x amount of dollars from the date of the accident. I if that were the case, not only would I say definitely go with the lesser charging attorney or law firm, I'd actually say if that's the case, don't get a law firm at all. Don't get an attorney. If your if your case is valued at what it's valued, at the date of the accident, you don't need an attorney. Go get that money. You don't need to have somebody eat your lunch. But that's just not true. The case that is handled without an attorney can have one value. The case that is handled by an attorney charging 25% will doing high volume and and not possibly not doing great work. I don't want to disparage anyone but my assumption is that you're not doing great work. That is going to have a different value. The law firm that is charging 33% different value. Law firm charging 40% different value possibly. Obviously, what I'm saying you got to take with a grain of salt and say the these are not black and white rules. There's a lot of gray. Could you end up with a law firm that's going to charge you 45% and doesn't do a great job? Yeah. Unfortunately, that is the truth of the marketplace. That's reality. So, you do need to vet your attorney. But there are firms, I know of them. There are firms that you can pay a greater percentage of the contingency. In other words, you can pay upwards of 42 to 45% and you're still going to net more in your pocket at the end of the day when that case settles or you get a verdict because that particular law firm is acutely aware of how to set up an appropriate claim or to present your damages. This is nothing fraudulent is going on. Your injuries are your injuries, but the value isn't the value. Your injuries are your injuries. When the accident occurs, whatever has happened to you, that's what your injury is. You need a good firm behind you to present the facts that show the greatest amount of damage that represents your true amount of damage to a jury or to an adjuster or to defense council. You got to convince the side that is going to reach into their pocket and pay you why your case is worth that much. And there's a lot that goes into that. So, it's not black and white where you can say, "Hey, I saw a billboard that says that they'll charge me 25%. So, I'm going to end up with uh a higher net settlement because they're only charging 25%." No. That firm may get you $20,000. They're only going to charge 25% on that $20,000 settlement. But are you really better off say paying a lower percentage on a $20,000 settlement as opposed to having gone to a firm that gets you $250,000 and you have to pay 40% to those attorneys to get that $250,000. This is math. It's not my favorite thing, but I mean, you got to make it make sense. You have to understand that I get frustrated. I don't know how to explain it. Um, and it's not because, by the way, our firm doesn't charge 40% or 45%. Um, I'm using that as an example. I'm not even pressing for our firm. I'm just trying to make you understand that when you're unlike selling real estate, your personal injury case should be approached differently when you're trying to have an analysis on what firm to hire, what attorney to hire. You need to know that on day one when you call that law firm, your case doesn't have a value assigned to it. It all depends on how your facts are presented. Now, you could get the top-notch, best, most brilliant mind on planet Earth. If you don't have injuries, you're not going to have a great settlement. So, that also comes into it. Your injuries are your injuries. But assuming that you you have documented injuries, the way those injuries are presented will vary widely. based on the type of representation that you have. And a lot of it really just comes down to attention to detail and how much effort a firm is going to put into presenting your case. The reason I made a disparaging comment earlier about a 25% contingency fee firm is because I am presuming that those firms are doing a lot of volume. They're getting a lot of cases in, so they're not getting a lot of attention to detail. That being said, I do know of firms that charge well in excess of whatever the industry standard is. Uh, which, by the way, there is no actual industry standard, but for the most part, typically what you're going to find in a bell-shaped curve on fees when you're looking for attorneys, it's about a third. There are a couple of massive firms that charge more than a third without having to go to litigation, and they are also volume firms. That's a little secret between you and I. Don't tell anybody. I told you that. But they charge an exorbitant amount even though they do high volume and you don't get the type of attention you deserve. That little bit of ASMR was uh complimentary. I'm not even going to charge a percentage on that. But let's address this. Perhaps I took it a little bit too personally cuz it was my kid's sister that got these comments. But we got uh so you guys heard Holly's video and she's essentially saying what she's saying is that you get legal representation without having to pay for it upfront. Do you pay for it? Obviously yes. There is a cost to it that we're this isn't a charity. We earn our keep all of us not just at the auto accident and attorneys group but all of the plaintiff's attorneys. This is a business at the end of the day. Holly's video was saying that unlike somebody left a comment here that says uh she must clearly not be trying to mention divorce attorneys in this case because they most certainly get paid uh at Trevor Hudson. Trevor, you're absolutely correct. The difference is with divorce attorneys, you're literally, this is the point she's trying to make. You're literally reaching into your pocket. You're going to pull out a credit card. I probably shouldn't have put my number on there, but uh you're going to pull out a credit card, you're going to give it to them, and they're going to start a retainer, right? You start out with 5 7 $10,000. That retainer goes into the client trust account. Every time you call the attorney, they look at your file, they do any work, they're going to bill against that retainer, and they're going to pull money out of the client trust account into their own operating account. That's how they earn it in quarter hour increments most of the time. think even less on some of the defense firms, but we won't get into that. These are new glasses, by the way. I can't see myself in the camera, but uh I picked these up in Paris a couple months ago, and well, they're very Harry Potteresque. I digress. What I was saying was that Holly's video is telling you that personal injury firms provide a contingency fee representation. That means that you don't have to come up with money upfront. Do you have to pay for your representation at the end? Yes, technically because, and I say technically because your attorneys are going to get you a settlement, and then from that settlement, they're going to earmark their attorney's fees and take that money and then give you the settlement outside of the attorney's fees. That is a lot different. Yes, you're paying, but that's a lot different situation than having to actually pay the attorney upfront and have them do the work, not knowing what the result is going to be. Pretty much every other aspect of law, you have to pay for representation regardless of outcome. And there's also this misconception that if you go to to trial and you win, you get your attorney's fees back. That is such a minority of situations where that's ever a thing. 90% of the time each party has to bear the weight or cost of their own legal representation. You're not going to get your legal fees back if you go to litigation and you have to pay for representation upfront. Not so in personal injury. And that's what Holly's video was about. She's simply stating that you get access to justice. You get attorneys that work for you, that work on your behalf, that zealously advocate for you without you having to pay them upfront. Will they take a percentage of whatever it is that they earn? Absolutely. It's welld deserved. By the way, that goes down to the point I was making at the beginning of the podcast about percentages. The money that they take should be welld deserved. If it's not, then they shouldn't take a percentage. If your case was worth $50,000 on day one when you called the law office and that law office settles your case for $50,000. Yeah, I could see why you'd be pissed off paying a percentage because you feel like they're eating a lunch because in that particular case, they absolutely are. If the insurance company calls you and says, "Mrs. X, we're going to cut you a check for $50,000 to settle this case right now." and you go and you get representation and the lawyer gets you $50,000, there's no point in having representation. I challenge you, however, to see if you can get that offer. By the way, it's not impossible. It's not, especially in pre-litigation work, there's no secret sauce. There are no forms, secret forms that have to be filled out there. It It's just a negotiation and getting the appropriate value on a case. If you can get yourself the value, you don't need a lawyer. You don't need an attorney to do it. You can do it yourself. Absolutely. I am speaking to those people that cannot do this themselves or in those situations, which happens way more frequently than it needs to nowadays where the claim is completely denied. You're not at fault. You're injured. You've lost your car. You've got hospital bills and the insurance company is telling you to kick rocks. You've tried to handle this yourself and you can't. You need legal muscle. You need people to help you. You need a team to get you through the judicial system to get you justice. We are nothing more than access to justice. If you don't need access to justice, ignore us altogether. You don't need to be bothered by it. And don't listen to the commercials. Don't look at the billboards. Just let it be. We're there for people that need access to justice. Speaking of access to justice, that's exactly how I view billboards on the highway. You listening to this podcast right now, simply by the nature of listening to the podcast, you know me. Bottom line, that's at a minimum. In all likelihood, you probably know a handful of attorneys. If you don't know a handful, at least you know one or two. You would know, at least you would have somebody to call in order to reach an attorney. That doesn't mean that every single citizen in this country has that sort of access. As a matter of fact, most of them don't. And there's a direct correlation between access to justice and your socioeconomic level in whatever community that you live in where you live. Maybe your neighbor's an attorney. Maybe your brother-in-law is an attorney. Maybe your father-in-law knows somebody whose friend is an attorney. But there are communities that don't have any attorneys in their direct group, in their direct contact. What was that? Uh seven degrees of separation of Kevin Bacon. Was that the game? There are communities that would not know how to access an attorney if it were not for those goddy billboards. I don't like them. I know you don't like them because I don't like them. But the truth of the matter is that there are people in this country that would not know that they have access to justice unless somebody had a billboard up there that said uh 888 get paid. By the way, not my jam. I don't do that. We don't advertise verdicts. We don't advertise settlement figures. I don't view cases that way. Uh I don't like that kind of advertising because I think it makes it look like a windfall, which means that it's undeserved or it was some sort of lottery win. And that's absolutely not what it is. Every single dollar that each of our clients receives is deserved because of injuries that they've incurred. And as a matter of fact, it's not enough and they need more. That's why we don't advertise that way. But that being said, I understand and I appreciate even though I may not like that particular attorney that advertises that way, I appreciate that they're doing that advertising so that it reaches somebody that may need it because that billboard, that billboard is access to justice. Right next to that billboard is like a billboard for Steak and Shake. They're selling burgers. Everyone knows where to go get a burger. I'm more mad at the Steak and Shake billboard than I am at the personal injury attorney billboard. Hell, I don't really know many plumbers. I'm appreciative when I see advertisements for plumbers. I don't need it right at that moment, but if something goes wrong, I'm like, "Shit, I need a plumber." And I see a sign. I'm like, "Thanks, Mr. Plumber Man. 877 plumb me." I don't even know if that's a real number, but you catch my drift. There's a reason for this stuff. And it's not nefarious. Personal injury attorneys specifically get a bad rap. Maybe it's deserved sometimes. Um I don't. And maybe a lot of it is because of some of the uh Let me go back into ASMR mode. There are a lot of douchebags in this industry between you and me. Just so we know, there's a lot of douchebags. But that doesn't mean that they're not doing good work. you can still be a douchebag and accidentally be doing good work. So, to the people that commented on Holly's video being like, "If you're getting a percentage, I'm still paying you." Yeah, you're right. You are still paying for services. But the whole point of that video was to say, "Hey, think about it for a minute. When you get an attorney, 90% of the time, you're going to have to pay that attorney to to take your call on the front end. Nobody's going to sit there and listen to your wos unless you pay them first. You got to pay for their time. Personal injury is one of the only industries I actually can't think of another industry where the work gets done and then after the work is completed successfully because if if it's not successful, the attorney doesn't get paid. So the work is done successfully and then they get paid for their services and the the services that they provided you, the advocacy that they provided you. And the attorneys should be the ones that are doing everything. If you're with a firm and you feel like you're making all the calls, you're not in touch with your attorney. They don't have any big ideas on how to present your case. Maybe it's time to switch because absolutely the attorneys should be earning their fee. The attorneys should look you dead in your eyes and tell you, "I can charge you 50% of your settlement and I know that I can still get more in your pocket because I'm representing you than if you're going to do this alone." And there are attorneys that I know and I believe will do that. Sometimes there are limitations. Sometimes the limitations are how much insurance is available. So, it's going to be capped at a maximum amount. And in those situations, I don't know about other firms. Actually, I do. A lot of these firms don't make adjustments, but we do. When those insurance limits are capped and your medical expenses are high, we make adjustments to our fees. That's just a philosophy of how I conduct business and what I wanted this industry to be like. I don't know of any other firm that's replacing car seats. For example, if you go to our website, ever since the first day our firm opened its doors when we didn't have clients, we were paying out of pocket to replace car seats regardless of fault. If you were in an accident and it was your fault, but you don't have enough money to replace a car seat because you've got a baby and that car seat needs to be replaced by the NHTSA guidelines, you contact our firm, submit proof of the accident and the fact that you're unable to pay. Our firm will buy your car seat. We'll send you a car seat. We've been doing that since day one. Again, it goes back to a philosophy of how we conduct business and what this industry should be. There are home run cases and those home run cases, the ones that you'll see other firms advertise on billboards. We would never do that. But those pay for a slew of not home run cases where we can still take care of people because I know that there are people out there that genuinely need help. They don't know how the process works. They don't know what their rights are. They're scared to pursue their rights. I know this because my own parents were like that when I was growing up. I saw it happen as a child. I felt my parents were victimized and I never wanted anyone to feel like that. Even as as a child looking up to the my parental units, my guardians, they're the adults. I felt like something wasn't right in the system and they were being victimized. And I was like, you know what? At the time, I didn't know that personal injury industry or attorneys were a I knew attorneys were a thing, but I didn't know how all of this worked. I just knew that what I saw didn't seem right. It just didn't sit well. Even at 9 years old, I could tell I was like, "This isn't right. They're concerned about something that is not their fault at all." But they never pursued their rights. I wish that I would be able to do something where I can help other people. And I got to tell you honestly as I'm sitting here in in in a podcast that well this firm built I feel blessed that I get to do this kind of work because it's what little boy me always dreamed of doing. Is it lucrative? Abso fuckingutely it is. I'm not going to lie to you. But it's lucrative for a reason. We do good work. We take care of people. We got great reviews. We don't screw anyone over. We don't lie. We don't cheat. We don't steal. I can't say that for everyone else in the industry, but we don't do that. And for that, I've been rewarded. I take those rewards and I help others. I take care of people that come to us any way I can. I get worked up when I see the responses to the videos about contingency fees that Holly made because it is coming from the paradigm that is polluted by those that are the worst in the industry and from the insurance lobby polluting the minds of the public. making people believe that personal injury attorneys are somehow the enemy. The people out here that are representing injured victims on contingency are the enemies, not the insurance companies that have refused to do what they were paid to do to take care of those people that have been injured. That's not the enemy. Those are the good guys. Those are the guys with, you know, they got good hands. They're great neighbors. That's not the enemy. The enemy is the the entity that's trying to help you get paid because that entity didn't take care of you. That's a cluster [ __ ] That is the power of PR. That's the power of media. That's the power of lobbying. I don't know what to tell you. If you're a former client of ours, uh, comment, come on to the podcast, reach out to me. Let people know. Let them know what the experience is like. let them know, especially those clients I can't say anyone's name directly on video, but if you're a client of ours, former client of mine and you were dealing I remember you I remember because we've had these conversations and it's been more than a handful of times. the insurance company had called you and tried to settle the case and they had given you a dollar value and then you came and you called our firm and we represented you and the difference in the valuation. If you reach out so we can get you on the podcast so that we can let people know what it's really like out here, I'd really appreciate it. All right, guys. Thanks for tuning in. Uh this was a little bit of a Oh, what is it? Shaen Freud. Shordenfroid. What's the word I'm looking for? Well, I don't remember the word, but it it lets me uh get a lot of stuff off my chest. Thank you for listening. I hope that there was still something in here for this week that you got. Next week, I'll I'll bring some facts for you so that uh you get some real value out of the podcast. As always, Mom, thank you so much for listening. I love you. Uh you guys follow, share, comment. It'll really help me out and it's the easiest thing for you to do. Thank you so much. Love you all. Take care.