What a Personal Injury Lawyer Costs in Illinois
This page walks the money down in the order it comes out, gross recovery, attorney fee, case expenses, medical bills and liens, then you, naming the Illinois rule or statute behind each number, because almost nobody calls us knowing what any of it is.
The case evaluation is free, and there is no fee unless we recover compensation for you. The fee is one-third in a personal injury case and 20 percent in a workers' compensation case. It comes out of the recovery, never out of your pocket, and if there is no recovery there is no fee and no expenses to repay.
Call (312) 492-7700 or email info@lsblaw.net.
What percentage does a personal injury lawyer take in Illinois?
In a personal injury case our contingency fee is one-third of the recovery, and it is one-third whether the claim settles on a demand package, is filed in the Law Division, or is tried to a verdict. The percentage does not climb because the case took longer or went to a jury. Appellate work is not covered by that fee and is handled separately. In a workers' compensation case the fee is 20 percent, which is also the cap Illinois sets by statute.
What Illinois does require is the part worth reading. Under Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(d)(2), a contingent fee agreement has to be in a writing you sign, and it has to state the method by which the fee is figured. That means the document in front of you names:
- The percentage that applies if the case settles.
- The percentage that applies if the case is tried.
- The percentage that applies if the case goes up on appeal.
- The litigation and other expenses that will be deducted from the recovery.
- Whether those expenses come out before or after the fee is calculated.
- Any expense you would be liable for whether or not you win.
That fifth line changes your net and it is the one people skip. Here is how ours reads: the fee is calculated on the gross amount recovered. After the fee is deducted, case expenses are reimbursed, then medical bills and liens are paid, and the remaining balance is your proceeds. If there is no recovery, there is no fee and no expenses are reimbursed, so you are never asked to write a check out of your own pocket.
At the end of the case you are entitled to a written statement showing the outcome, the remittance to you and the method by which your number was figured. We have been trying injury cases in Chicago courtrooms since 1993, and more than thirty years of that work is what the percentage buys.
How much of a $25,000 settlement will I actually get?
On a $25,000 settlement, with our one-third fee, modest case costs and a hospital lien, roughly $9,500 lands in your account, and lien negotiation is what moves that number most. Here is the arithmetic in the order it happens, as an illustration rather than a quote on your case.
Step 1: Gross recovery
$25,000
Step 2: Attorney fee, one-third of the gross recovery
$8,333
Step 3: Case costs, itemized
$1,200: Cook County filing fee and service of process at $500, medical records and imaging at $250, one deposition transcript at $450.
Step 4: Health care lien as first demanded
$6,000
Step 5: Net to you
$9,467
Now run it again with the lien worked. When that same $6,000 hospital lien is reduced to $3,000, your net goes from $9,467 to $12,467 and nothing else about the case changed. That $3,000 is what the last phase of an injury case is worth in dollars.
Call (312) 492-7700or email info@lsblaw.net and we will walk your figures down that same list.
Are case costs the same thing as the attorney fee?
No. The fee is the percentage. Case costs are the money spent to build and prove the case, billed at what they cost with nothing added, and listed separately in your fee agreement. In a Cook County injury case they typically include:
- The filing fee in the Law Division of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
- Service of process on each defendant.
- Medical records, imaging and radiology film fees from every treating provider.
- Court reporter and videographer fees for depositions.
- Treating physician fees for narrative reports and deposition testimony.
- Expert witness fees, and accident reconstruction where liability is contested.
- Subpoena fees and trial exhibits.
We advance those costs while the case is pending, so you are not funding your own case out of a household budget a lost paycheck has already thinned. They are reimbursed out of the recovery after the fee is deducted, and they appear as line items on the closing statement rather than as a lump sum. If there is no recovery, no case expenses are reimbursed and you owe nothing for them. Rule 1.5(d)(2) requires your agreement to tell you plainly about any expense you would be liable for whether or not you prevail, and in ours the answer is none.
How much can a lawyer take in an Illinois workers' comp case?
Twenty percent, and it is set by statute rather than negotiated firm by firm. Under Section 16a of the Illinois Workers' Compensation Act, 820 ILCS 305/16a, an attorney's fee in a comp case cannot exceed 20 percent of the compensation recovered and paid. The statute goes further than the headline number:
- In death, total disability and partial disability cases, the fee cannot exceed 20 percent of what 364 weeks of permanent total disability would pay under the Act.
- No fee is charged on undisputed medical expenses at all.
- No fee is charged on temporary total disability benefits unless the employer refused them, paid the wrong amount, or cut them off, and the benefits were obtained or reinstated through the attorney's work.
- The fee contract is written on a form prescribed by the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission and filed with the Chairman, who approves it only if it complies with the statute.
No lawyer in Illinois can charge you more than that cap, and a fee agreement the Commission has not approved is not enforceable. The clock is different too: a comp claim runs under 820 ILCS 305/6(d), three years from the accident or two years from the last payment of compensation, whichever is later, and the employer has to be notified within 45 days. The benefits themselves are covered on our page on
the Illinois workers' compensation claim and what it pays.
Why do the medical liens come out before I do?
Because Illinois gives hospitals, physicians and other licensed providers a statutory lien on your recovery, and it also caps what that lien can take. Under the Health Care Services Lien Act, 770 ILCS 23/10, all health care liens together cannot exceed 40 percent of the verdict, judgment, award or settlement. No single licensed category of professional or provider may take more than one-third. And where the health care liens reach that 40 percent ceiling, attorney liens are limited to 30 percent.
Medicare works differently again. Under 42 CFR 411.37 it reduces what it recovers by its share of the procurement costs, the fee and expenses spent getting the money. That is one more reason the figure on the first demand letter is rarely the figure that gets paid.
Which liens attach, how they are verified and how they get negotiated down is its own subject, and
we have written it up in detail.
Do I need a lawyer for a car accident?
Not always, and we would rather say so. If your crash produced property damage only, nobody was hurt, and there is no argument about who hit whom, you can usually handle the repair claim yourself and keep the whole check. Hiring anyone for that is spending money on nothing.
Once there is an injury the calculation changes, for reasons that have little to do with how complicated the collision was. The adjuster asks for a recorded statement before anyone knows how bad the injury is, and that recording gets read back to you later. The first offer tends to arrive before treatment is finished, which is before the number is knowable. And Illinois deadlines run whether or not anyone has told you about them. Our page on
Chicago car accident claims covers how those cases get built.
When should I call a lawyer after a crash in Chicago?
Before you give a recorded statement, and well before the deadline that applies to your claim. These are the Illinois clocks that decide whether you have a case at all:
- Two years to file an Illinois personal injury suit, under 735 ILCS 5/13-202.
- Two years for a wrongful death action, under 740 ILCS 180/2.
- One year to sue the Chicago Transit Authority, under 70 ILCS 3605/41.
- One year for a claim against most other local public entities, under 745 ILCS 10/8-101.
- Forty-five days to report a work injury to your employer.
A missed deadline ends a claim that was otherwise worth money, and the transit and municipal windows close first, at half the ordinary two years. If a CTA bus or train was involved, you have one year from the date the claim accrued to file suit, and
our CTA claims page carries the statute and how those cases get built.
What does a personal injury lawyer do for the percentage?
The work, in this order. Nothing on this list is optional, and all of it happens before anyone talks about a number.
Step 1: Investigate liability
Police reports, scene photographs, video from nearby businesses or transit cameras, witness statements, and the regulations that apply to a commercial driver or a jobsite.
Step 2: Assemble the records and bills
Every provider, visit, imaging study and billed charge, reconciled so the medical picture is complete rather than partial.
Step 3: Get the treating physician on record
A narrative report from the doctor who actually treated you, tying the injury to the crash and stating what the future looks like.
Step 4: Send the demand package
Liability, medicals, wage loss and prognosis, presented as a case rather than as a claim number.
Step 5: File suit and take discovery
When the offer does not move, the case goes to the Law Division and depositions, written discovery and expert disclosure follow.
Step 6: Negotiate the liens
The reduction work that decides your net, done after the recovery is fixed and before the check is disbursed.
Every case is prepared as though it will be tried, because the cases that settle well are the ones the other side can see are ready.
Our published verdicts and settlements show what that preparation has produced.
Does hiring a lawyer change what the case is worth?
It changes what the other side has to account for, and in our cases that has been measurable:
- $11 million for a passenger struck by a CTA bus.
- An $8 million verdict for a woman struck by a CTA bus.
- $5 million for a University of Chicago student struck by a CTA bus while riding a bicycle.
- $3 million for a woman struck by a garbage truck.
- $2.2 million in a lumbar fusion case.
Those are the results of cases worked all the way through, not of a letter sent to an adjuster.
Questions people ask us about fees
Do I pay anything for the first consultation?
No. The case evaluation is free, and you are not asked to sign a fee agreement to have the conversation. Call (312) 492-7700 or email info@lsblaw.net and you will get an answer on your deadline and on exactly what the fee would be without owing anyone anything.
What do I owe if we lose?
Nothing. There is no attorney fee unless compensation is recovered, and case expenses are reimbursed only out of a recovery, so a case that does not pay leaves you owing neither. Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(d)(2) requires the written agreement to state plainly any expense you would be liable for whether or not you prevail, and ours states there is none.
Does the percentage go up if my case goes to trial?
No. Our fee in a personal injury case is one-third whether the case settles or is tried to a verdict. Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(d)(2) requires the writing to state the settlement, trial and appeal percentages separately, and in ours the settlement and trial figures are the same number. Appellate work sits outside that fee and is handled under a separate agreement.
Which cases cannot be taken on a contingency fee?
Criminal defense and most domestic relations matters cannot be handled on a contingency fee, under Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(e). Injury, wrongful death and workers' compensation claims all can be, which covers every case this firm handles.
How long does it take to get paid after I sign the settlement?
Typically 30 to 60 days from the signed release, and lien resolution sets the pace. The insurer issues the draft, funds are held while health care liens and any Medicare or Medicaid interest are verified and reduced, then the closing statement and your check are issued.
Can you meet me if I cannot get downtown?
Yes. Our office is at 311 N. Aberdeen, Suite 200D, in Chicago, and we come to a home or a hospital room when a client cannot travel. We represent injured people across Cook, DuPage, Lake, Will, Kane, McHenry and Kankakee counties.
Find out what your case would cost to bring
One call gets you your deadline, the percentage that would apply, and an honest read on what your case is likely to cost to bring. There is no fee unless we recover compensation for you, and the evaluation costs nothing either way.
Call (312) 492-7700, email
info@lsblaw.net, or send us the details and we will come back to you with the numbers.