Why fees for Products Liability, Medical Negligence and Nursing Home Lawyers are Higher than for Personal Injury Attorneys

Posted on Monday, October 17th, 2011 at 10:51 am    

The answer is simple: risk reward ratio. Medical Negligence, Nursing Home and Products Liability cases do not settle with a few letters and phone calls. They resolve, if at all, after expensive, protracted litigation. The odds of obtaining a verdict in a Medical Negligence, Nursing Home or Products Liability case are low as compared to suing, for example, a drunk driver. And many times in Medical Negligence, Nursing Home or Products Liability cases there is the need to bring in additional counsel who has experience with a particular product or type of case. These additional fees are paid by the attorneys, negotiated between themselves, with the client’s acknowledgment , but not at additional expense to the client.

At Law Offices of Gary Green expenses on Medical Negligence and Products Liability cases usually run 25 times higher than for general negligence cases!

It is impossible to know how much expenses will be for any case until the case is over, but suffice it to say expenses in Medical Negligence, Nursing Home and Products Liability cases usually run in the scores (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars. Attorneys in Medical Negligence, Nursing Home and Products Liability cases have to hire professional experts to prove the cases. The requirement for proving one’s prima facie case by expert testimony in Medical Negligence cases is by statutory law. The very definition of Medical Negligence is proof, by expert testimony, that the care rendered by the defendant fell below the standard of care for that particular jurisdiction. Especially in Medical Negligence cases, local experts do not want to testify against local defendants. That means we have to fly in out-of-state experts who charge literally thousands of dollars for every hour they are away from their home – some of them bill even when they are sleeping!

Finally, it is often more difficult for a jury to find against a doctor, hospital, nursing home or company that manufactures products. Health care professionals, engineers and company representatives are revered in this country. They are well educated, suave and usually work with, employ or treat many of the potential jurors. Using the drunk driver analogy again, a juror is much more likely to find against a drunk driver than a doctor, hospital, nursing home or company representative.

So there you have it. Higher expenses and less chance of success are why fees go up, usually from 40% to 45%, in Medical Negligence, Nursing Home and Products Liability cases.

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