The fee is regulated, not negotiated
In ordinary personal injury work, a contingency percentage is set by contract. A third or more is common, it rises if the case goes to trial, and nobody outside the agreement reviews it.
Workers' compensation works differently in most states. The legislature caps what can be charged, and a workers' compensation judge or board approves the fee before it is paid. The percentages permitted are generally well below ordinary contingency rates, and in several states the fee can only be charged on benefits the attorney actually secured — not on benefits the insurer was already paying anyway.
The caps, and the method for calculating them, differ by state. Some use a flat percentage, some a sliding scale that falls as the award rises, some tie the fee to the additional benefit obtained. The figure that matters is your state's, and it is a fair question to ask before signing anything.
What you should never be asked for
- A retainer or any upfront payment for a workers' compensation claim.
- Hourly billing.
- A fee where nothing was recovered.
- An ordinary personal injury contingency percentage applied to a pure benefits claim — that is worth questioning directly.
The question people forget to ask: expenses
The fee is not the whole cost. Cases generate expenses — medical records, expert reports, deposition transcripts, filing fees — and these are handled separately from the attorney's fee.
The detail that changes your net figure is whether expenses come out of the recovery before or after the fee is calculated. Deducted first, the fee is calculated on a smaller number and you keep more. Deducted after, you do not. Neither approach is improper, but they produce different outcomes and the agreement should say plainly which applies.
Why a third-party claim is funded differently
If someone other than your employer contributed to the accident, that civil claim is not a workers' compensation matter and is not subject to the same caps. It is funded by an ordinary contingency agreement, at ordinary contingency rates.
That is not a worse deal — it reflects genuinely different work and different risk. A benefits claim is largely administrative with liability rarely in dispute. A civil claim requires proving fault, surviving discovery, and accepting the possibility of recovering nothing at all.
Where both exist they interact through the workers’ compensation lien, and the order in which they resolve affects the net result. See third-party work injury claims and how contingency fees work.
Is it worth paying anything at all?
On an accepted claim that resolves quickly, often not — the fee would not earn itself back. Where the calculation changes is on denials, disputed impairment ratings, early settlement offers, and any case where a second defendant exists. When representation is worth it sets out the situations where it usually is.
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