Saturday, July 14, 2007

Our states personal injury lawyers should get paid a lot for swift justice: The Hauptman OBrien law firm took on a serious injury case just weeks after the accident and within a few months was in court getting a settlement for nearly $200,000. The clients dismissed the law firm before they accepted the settlement The lawyers sued for their justly earned fee. The Nebraska supreme court reverses, ordering the law firm to prove that its fee was reasonable,Hauptman, O'Brien v. Turco, S-05-928, 273 Neb. 924 Ahem! Concurring Justice Gerrard wants to make sure we dont chill the worthy efforts of personal injury attorneys who work a few months on a case and pocket thousands of dollars. Heed his words of wisdom, "(the client) must (have specific) objections to (show why the fees are unreasonable). Inparticular, it will generally be insufficient to simply conclude that the size of a contingent fee,compared to the length of the litigation, makes the fee unreasonable.It should therefore be the unusual circumstance that a court refuses to enforce a fully informed contingent fee arrangement because of events arising after the contract’s negotiation

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