How Much Does a Jones Act Lawyer Charge?

When you are injured onboard an ocean or sea vessel, whether you are a maritime worker or in the business of working on an offshore oilrig, you may have many questions. One of those questions is likely to be how much a Jones Act lawyer charges.

The Cost of a Jones Act Lawyer

A Jones Act lawyer can assist you in a number of ways in bringing your Jones Act claim, from helping you to comply with procedural rules (including the three-year statute of limitations) to helping you to prove negligence, which you are required to do in order to win your case. The advice of a Jones Act lawyer is invaluable when you bring a claim under this complex federal legislation, but many plaintiffs are still concerned with the cost. Paying attorney’s fees can seem a big risk to a plaintiff who is grappling with disability resulting from the injury and who knows that recovery under the Jones Act through a settlement or damage award is uncertain.

Fortunately, Jones Act attorneys understand the risk to plaintiffs of hiring an attorney and paying costs and fees. As such, your Jones Act lawyer should charge you fees only on a contingency basis.

What Does Contingency Mean?

When an attorney charges you on a contingency fee basis, you pay the attorney’s costs and fees only if you win your case. In other words, the requirement that you pay for legal services is dependent upon collecting compensation from the defendant. This type of fee structure is often called “no win/ no fee” and it removes the risk of hiring a Jones Act attorney since you will not be out any out-of-pocket costs if you are not successful in making your claim.

Hiring a Jones Act attorney on a contingency fee basis ensures that your lawyer’s interests and your own interests are perfectly aligned and that your attorney will be trying to obtain the largest settlement or damage award that is reasonable given your injuries and possible under the rules set forth in the Act. Hiring a lawyer on a contingent fee basis is also a good way to judge whether you have a strong case, since attorneys will not want to waste their time and effort on a case that is not meritorious nor on a case that has no chance of success.

For most plaintiffs, however, the biggest benefit of a contingency fee payment structure is that you have nothing to lose by hiring a lawyer. In fact, since your attorney can help you to maximize your settlement and damages, you will likely collect more working with a Jones Act lawyer than you would have if you had pursued the case on your own, even after you pay the legal fees.

How Do Contingency Fees Work?

Contingency fees are normally assessed based on a percentage of the amount of compensation you receive. Compensation for a Jones Act claim includes payment for medical costs, pain and suffering, lost wages and lost fringe benefits. This can add up to a significant verdict for a plaintiff. A Jones Act attorney will generally take no more than 33 percent or around 1/3 of the total settlement or damage award, leaving you with a significant sum to compensate you for your loss.