Why medical attorneys need to assess the value of your case

Medical attorneys will make an initial assessment of value before they will decide to take on your case. During the initial meeting with your medical lawyer, the first thing your medical attorney will do is get a preliminary idea of the value of your case. Since it's so early in the case, your medical attorney will rarely share this information with you. Also at this preliminary stage, the chance that he will be wrong in making the assessment is too great, so your medical attorney might not tell you right away what his opinion is regarding your case. However, this is a vital step in the process.

Doctor malpractice cases are so expensive and time consuming that medical attorneys want to have some idea whether

• They'll get well compensated for the hard work ahead; and whether
  
• you'll be left with a reasonable recovery.

Because the majority of doctor malpractice cases are handled on a contingency fee basis, what the medical lawyer will eventually get will depend heavily on the value of the case.

What is a contingency fee?

A contingency fee simply means that the medical attorney will be paid by retaining a percentage of whatever you, as plaintiff, recover.

What's sad is that there are no good small value doctor malpractice cases. Every medical lawyer knows that even doctor malpractice cases that have only one expert witness, the costs can skyrocket to a staggering $50,000.

Now let's try an example. Suppose the case is valued at $150,000 and the medical attorney's contingency fee is one-third of that, this leaves the client with just $50,000. For the majority of medical attorneys, any doctor malpractice case or medical lawsuit where the medical lawyer gets more than what the client will be getting is a no take case.