Five questions to ask before you sign a contingency fee agreement

The first meeting with a personal injury firm is usually short, friendly, and arranged around a signature. Someone explains the contingency percentage, describes the general shape of the process, and slides a fee agreement across the table. Nothing about that is improper, and most of the time the arrangement works out. But it is the one moment when you hold every piece of leverage you will ever hold in the relationship, because you have not yet signed anything, and a careful reader uses it to ask questions whose answers are hard to give vaguely.

1. Who actually handles this file on a Tuesday afternoon?

The attorney sitting across from you may not be the person who reads your medical records, calls the adjuster, or drafts the demand letter. In many offices that work belongs to a case manager or paralegal, supervised by an attorney who sees the file at defined points. That structure is normal and often efficient, since a paralegal chasing records is cheaper and faster than a partner doing the same thing. What matters is knowing the arrangement in advance, by name, along with who returns your call when the named person is out for a week.

2. How many open files does that person carry right now?

Ask for a number, not an adjective. A firm that handles high volume soft tissue claims may run hundreds of open matters per handler, and that is a workable model for cases that settle on paper. A firm that carries thirty files per attorney is doing something different, and charging for it in the same percentage. Neither answer is disqualifying on its own. The useful signal is whether the number matches the kind of case you have, and whether the person quoting it hesitates before saying it out loud.

3. When did this office last try a case to verdict?

Almost every injury claim resolves without a jury, which is why the question is worth asking. Insurers keep track of which firms file suit, which firms push through discovery, and which firms have never picked a jury in that county. That reputation is priced into offers long before anyone talks about trial. A firm that tries two or three cases a year is in a different negotiating position than one that has tried none since 2019, and the specific answer, with a rough year and a courthouse, tells you more than any brochure.

4. What happens if you decide to leave?

Clients change firms, and the fee agreement should say what follows. Most agreements provide that the departing firm gets paid out of any eventual recovery, either a share of the fee or the value of hours worked, plus reimbursement of costs already advanced. Read the clause before you sign it, and ask directly whether the office would assert a lien on a later settlement and how the amount would be calculated. A firm comfortable with the question will answer it in a sentence. The clause matters most when relations have already soured.

5. Does the percentage change once suit is filed?

Tiered fees are common and entirely legitimate. A typical structure charges one rate on a case that settles before filing and a higher rate once a complaint goes on the docket, sometimes with another step at the start of trial. What a careful reader checks is the trigger. Filing suit is a decision the firm makes, so ask what circumstances would prompt it, whether you are consulted first, and how case costs, which come out of the recovery separately from the fee, tend to grow after the case enters litigation.

What the answers are really telling you

None of these questions has a single right answer, and a firm can score badly on caseload and still do excellent work on the case in front of it. The value is in how the answers are given: specific numbers, named people, a fee clause the attorney can explain without looking it up. State bar associations set the rules on written fee agreements and client communication, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks employment across the legal profession, but neither will sit in the meeting with you. Take the agreement home overnight. Firms that expect to keep clients for two years rarely object to twenty-four hours.