Lisa-
Fees can be a tricky thing. All lawyers want to know up front how you are going to pay for their services. At a big firm a partner who takes your case charges, say $250 an hour, under him/her there is at least one associate doing most of the work on your case. The partner bills you for that associate's time, plus the time of a paralegal, plus coping, faxing, telephone calls, support staff etc. I think you should ask directly what the charges are for all of those things. Ask if you get billed for calling the lawyer to ask questions, how much, how long. Be straight forward about it and be sure to get info on all the "incidentals" that will get billed to you. Most firms send clients monthly bills that are itemized. You will proably be asked to pay a retainer. That money will get used to file your case and do preliminary work, once the case starts rolling the costs add up.
Phone calls is one area where I would say you should tell the lawyer you do not expect to get a bill for calling him to ask about your case or for him or his staff to call you.
Ask how the attorney bills, is it in 15 minute incriments or 30 minute incriments or something else. Attorneys, especially associates, work based on billable hours. So, I am the associate on your case and I write a letter to the doctor and it takes me 10 minutes that counts as 1/4 of an hour and I have to bill 1900 hours for the year.....see that's like 36 hours a week that I have to bill over the year so I am looking for ways to make my hours and a lot of times anything goes, especially phone calls. I think phone calls should be free. I have no problem that the client gets billed for long distance charges but if the client calls me or I call her then that should be a freebie. IT's not always so.
I am not sure the nature of your case but if depositions need taken then there is the court reporter's fee and additional things most of which are flat fees and not negotiable. Filing fees and court fees are not negotiable and can be about $200 to $500.
Just be aware that there are lots of incidentals that sneak in. Sometimes in cases a firm might have a flat fee for a certain type of case and then there are adds. For example, a divorce might be $5000, then add ons for kids, business considerations, property settlement issues that would not apply to a couple with no kids, no property and nothing else.
You might not have much luck negotiating down a fee on some things. If your going on a contigency fee, be aware that your lawyer takes his share first. Then you get what's left over.
Those t.v. lawyers that say "Before you call the insurance company call us." are that way. An insurance company is not going to raise it's settlement offer just becasue you have a lawyer. Lawyers know this, so they want to make it seem as if they got you a great deal and then they take their 33% out of your award. If you are part of a class action case you have almost no ability to negotiate fees but my guess is that they would be reasonable because built into the award is the attorneys' fees.
If you want more specific info e-mail me and I'll try to help you, just don't let my brother and sister lawyers know I'm not billing you
Bonny, I don't know about the breast implants thing. I'll check around and see what I can find. That might have been one that got settled pretty quickly because there were some celebrities involved, Jenny Jones that talk show host was in on one of them I think. The big cases to watch now are the Phen-fen, the Firestone tires thing, and the Wal-mart employees suit should be good too.
-Mara