Any good lawyers to help with a conflict of interest/fee dispute?!?

Is there anyone out here that can help with a conflict of interest/fee dispute I am having with my attorney?

A brief rundown: I was seriously injured in a auto accident at work. I hired the same firm for both the personal injury and worker's comp sides of the claim. Personal injury gets standard 33.33%. Work comp gets 20%.

At fault driver's insurance agrees to pay full limits of their client - it gets set aside in a trust fund until settlement with work comp insurance company because they have a legitimate claim to it due to medical fees paid by them. Settlement time comes with the work comp insurance company. W/C side of the firm (only) represents me during the settlement conference despite the personal injury limits being discussed as an integral part of the settlement. The W/C insurance co would not settle without the PI limits being settled as well. W/C attorney lets me settle while splitting the limits 50/50 with the W/C insurance co. I was under the assumption I would only pay the 33.33% of the 50% I received. Instead they charged me 33.33% on the full 100% of the limits, paid the W/C insurance company the 50% out of my leftovers, then charged me ANOTHER 20% on the same amount (the 50% of the PI limit) the W/C insurance company then paid me as part of the settlement. I was never advised during the settlement conference that I would be charged 33.33 on the full policy limits and therefore would be just plain stupid to not ask for the full 100% of the PI limit and just have the W/C insurance co pay me that much less on the W/C side of it, so I'm not charged twice by the attorneys.

Is this not a clear case of conflict of interest? Of course the W/C attorney would want me to get paid as much as possible, so he could get his 20%. I hire an attorney to represent MY best interests, not theirs. I also specifically hired attorneys for both W/C and PI from the same law office to avoid being charged twice on the same money.

Without seeing the contract you signed with the attorney it's going to be difficult to know whether they are out of line or not. Hate to say it but it doesn't seem like this is necessarily wrong to me. The total amount you got was 100% of the policy limit - the fact that the WC insurance company had a claim to some of that money doesn't change the fact that 100% of the policy limit either went to you or went somewhere (the WC insurance co.) on your behalf.

I guess the best way to analogize would be like this: Adam owes Bill $100. Adam has an insurance claim and I represent Adam in that claim. As a result, Adam gets a $200 insurance payout but it's already been agreed between the 3 of us that Bill will get his $100 out of that pot of money. Even though you only put $100 in your pocket, the fact is that my work got you $200, and I should be able to charge you a fee based on the total amount I got you, shouldn't I? After all, Bill isn't going to pay me (and I assume the WC insurance company isn't going to pay YOUR lawyer.)

Hindsight is 20/20 but I'd have to say that it might have been better to handle these as two separate matters. At the very least it would have been easier to understand where the money was going.

You need to chat with another lawyer. My understanding is that if policy limits are paid, then secondary insurance has no claim because your were not "made whole". My situation was a bit different ( my health insurance company trying to get part of my settlement from the at fault driver's insurance company), but I would think the same principle would apply.

The real question is. Did you receive a check[s]. If so did you sign and cash them? Unless a good attorney says differently you're SOL. That check being cashed was your acceptance of said settlement.

I may have some professional advice for you from a highly regarded retired workmans comp lawyer. I have sent your statement to him and am waiting for a reply.

Monky may be able to give you some direction here. As could some other members. I have zero work comp experience.

TFogger, I believe your situation was different.

VDW... I work for a firm. So I may be able to shed some light... hopefully, we didn't handle this and we can discuss that privately if need be. I'm not an attorney so this is not legal advice. I did just ask our WC atty your question however(WC is a strange strange thing), and without knowing limits and what not.. a lot can't be known. Ps - it's a trust account not a trust fund.. basically it's just a separate account from the firms working account to hold settlement funds till they are dispersed. No interest is earned. So the trust account is where the firm gets paid from as well.

Basic run down:

WC has a subrogation right to your settlement from your PI.
Policy limits (I'm guessing they were state minimums? $25k)

If WC lien was higher than policy limits then they likely took half of the PI settlement. Which in most cases WC has to give permission to settle for limits. Typically they would settle for 1/3, unless the lien is high.

If you want to provide me with any numbers privately, I can probably get you a better answer.

The 33.33% would come from the full settlement amount, not just what you recover from the settlement.

You should seek advice from another attorney however, if you do not feel you were done right. There could possibly be other avenues to explore. Such as UM/UIM claims on your personal insurance. Not sure how that would work from being in a work vehicle though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TFOGGER

You need to chat with another lawyer. My understanding is that if policy limits are paid, then secondary insurance has no claim because your were not "made whole". My situation was a bit different ( my health insurance company trying to get part of my settlement from the at fault driver's insurance company), but I would think the same principle would apply.

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Your's is indeed different than WC provider having subrogation rights... I'm guessing the at fault had a min policy as well on yours (people really should carry higher limits with the cost of health care, 1 ER trip can hit $20k quickly), hopefully you had UIM coverage on your own policy. If I remember correctly your last accident was bad...

Thanks for the many replies.

I think we've come to agree that they should have warned me about paying double. The W/C company didn't care where the money came from. I should have been told during the settlement at the very least that I was paying the 33% of the PI limits regardless of how I settled. In this case I would know I was not only paying 1/3 on the 1/2 limits I was getting, but also the 1/2 limit I was giving away. The W/C co would have agreed to letting me keep the full policy limit and just payed me the 1/2 policy less on the other end. In my mind there is a clear conflict of interest for the W/C attorney to not make this clear and let me pay twice on that money.

Monky, PM inbound

Clear as mud, right?