Over recent years, the size of the personal injury attorney market has actually grown at a rate that is faster than the growth in population of the United States of America. The overall market size relating to the area of personal injury law was worth a whopping $32.5 billion in 2019 and is estimated to keep on growing at a rate of 1.3 percent throughout the 2020s.
As it currently stands there are around 56.605 law firms practicing in this area of the law – one of the very best of these being Jividen Law Offices, PLLC. Personal injury law is a huge industry for the labor markets, with in excess of 130,979 Americans working in it all across the country.
It is clear then that it is most definitely an exciting time to be part of this field of law and with so much going on and with so many people involved, it is only expected that many people have lots of different questions about the personal injury law market. To help shed some light on the industry, we have attempted to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about it.
How Big Is The Person Injury Law Market In The USA?
A short answer to this is that it is a very big market. Each and every year in America, around 37,000 individuals die as a result of being involved in a car crash. In addition to this, there are somewhere in the region of 2.35 million injuries to people that occur as a result of car accidents.
Moving the focus away from road traffic accidents, there are somewhere in the region of between 108,000 and 250,000 deaths from medical negligence in America each and every year. Falls and slips account for around 8,000,000 of visits to the emergency room each and every year.
These figures show exactly how big the personal injury law market is in the USA. As a result of this, the number of personal injury attorneys has increased greatly over the years with there now being 93,000 legal professionals operating in the country.
What Is the Cost Of Hiring A Personal Injury Attorney?
The fee structure and fee amount varies from attorney to attorney, although the vast majority of them operate on a contingency fee system. This means that they will only take a proportion of the settlement that you are awarded. Because the fee of the personal injury attorney is dependent upon them winning the case, they do not get paid if they are unsuccessful and so will try their utmost to be successful and win the case.
The contingency amount ranges anywhere between 20 percent and 45 percent, depending on the individual attorney. This does not have any bearing on the amount of money that is awarded as part of your settlement – so the 20 percent fee could either be a 20 percent cut of $1,000 or of $10,000.
In the vast majority of cases, personal injury attorneys also charge a disbursement fee, although some attorneys do include this cost in their contingency fee.
How Much Do Personal Injury Claims Pay Out?
There are a number of things that can impact on the settlement amount of any personal injury claim. These include the seriousness and the nature of the injuries that have been sustained and how long recovery from these takes; how much money has been lost through either damages or loss of earnings; how any injuries sustained have impacted on work or a career; how the incident has impacted upon the ability to do any sort or recreational or sporting activities.
Taking all of these things into consideration, the payout amount for a personal injury claim can range from anywhere ranging from $1,000 all the way up to in excess of $1,000,000. These two figures are of course the extremes – the average is actually somewhere around the $65,459.99 figure. The vast majority of payouts are made without having to go to court, with the figure being increased greatly where a specialist personal injury attorney is hired to handle the case.
However, it should be noted that in around 30 percent of all personal injury claims that are made, there is no financial compensation awarded to the victim.
What Are The Qualifications Required To Become A Personal Injury Attorney?
In order to be able to operate as a personal injury lawyer in the United States of America, an individual must have first graduated from a law school that has all of the required accreditations. They are also required to have passed the bar exam for the particular state that they wish to operate in. Any person who meets all of these requirements can operate as a personal injury attorney – there is no specialist training or certification required.
This is why when looking to hire a personal injury attorney, it is important to ask them about their previous experience in handling these types of cases rather than simply looking at what qualifications they possess.
What Number Of Cases Do Personal Injury Attorneys Deal With?
This number varies greatly from attorney to attorney. The things that can and do impact upon the amount of cases being handled at any given point in time include how big the law firm is and what human and financial resources they have at their disposal; how skilled the personal injury attorney is and how hard they are willing to work.
Taking all those things into consideration, the average one typically handles anywhere between 20 and 60 separate cases all at the same time. Just like anything though, there is always likely to be exceptions to this – with some personal injury attorneys handling more and some handling less.
The number of cases that they currently have on the go is an important thing to determine before hiring a personal injury attorney, as being spread thin is not good for the success of any case.
This is a Contributor Post. Opinions expressed here are opinions of the Contributor. Influencive does not endorse or review brands mentioned; does not and cannot investigate relationships with brands, products, and people mentioned and is up to the Contributor to disclose. Contributors, amongst other accounts and articles may be professional fee-based.