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Home :: FAQ :: Workers Compensation Disability

If I hire an attorney can I expect not to have the other side to pay my attorney’s fees?

Many attorneys take on Workers’ Compensation cases for various reasons.  Normally an attorney will charge the statutory fee based on the settlement of your case.  The statutory fee is 20% of the first $5,000 of the amount of the benefits secured, 15% of the next $5,000 of the amount of benefits secured, and 10% of the remaining benefits secured up to the first 10 years after the claim is filed, and 5% of benefits secured after 10 years.  If a Claimant and attorney agree to file a petition for benefits for a medical issue or a payment indemnity benefits, then if the attorney is successful, the Workers’ Compensation carrier would be responsible for the payment of a reasonable attorney’s fee to the Claimant’s attorney and to bear reasonable cost incurred by the other attorney and Claimant in the prosecution of the claim.  This was not the law for a number of years until it was finally decided by the Florida Supreme Court.  For 4-5 years, attorneys who made their livings litigating cases against insurance companies were precluded from making a living that way because of the unconscionable changes that Florida legislators were encouraged to make by their benefactors, the Florida Workers’ Comp insurers. As a consequence the insurers, who were not controlled by bad faith statutes in the state of Florida concerning Workers’ Compensation matters, low-balled and squeezed insured employees into settling their cases for far less than the case was worth because the injured employee could not find attorneys to represent them in these sorts of cases.  Now with the opinion of the Florida Supreme Court on the matter, private attorneys can be paid for winning against an employer or its Workers’ Compensation insurer, and the insurer must pay the attorneys’ fee.  An attorney can also make a fee from the Claimant if the case is settled, but that fee must be according to statute and approved by a Workers’ Compensation Judge.