The insurer already has a lawyer. Now you do.

1. 01

   The recovery lands in the trust account

   Nothing is disbursed on the day the cheque arrives.

   Every dollar recovered on your behalf is deposited into the firm's trust account and stays there until it clears and until every competing claim against it has been identified and resolved. A lawyer who disburses around a known lien is exposed, and so is the client.

   • Funds are held in a Florida Bar trust account, separate from firm operating funds.
   • We do not disburse against uncollected funds, so a large cheque adds days, not weeks.
   • You receive a written itemisation before anything moves.
2. 02

   Advanced case costs come off the top

   The money the firm already spent to build the case.

   Costs are not the fee. They are the out-of-pocket expenses advanced while the case was running, and under our fee agreement you owe them only out of a recovery. If there is no recovery, we absorb them.

   • Filing fees, service of process, court reporters and deposition transcripts.
   • Medical records and imaging, accident reconstruction, and treating-physician testimony.
   • Mediation fees, expert retainers and trial exhibit preparation.
3. 03

   The contingency fee is calculated and disclosed

   A regulated sliding scale, not a number we choose.

   Contingency fees in Florida personal injury matters are governed by the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar. The permitted percentage steps down as the recovery grows and steps up at defined litigation milestones, and exceeding the scale requires court approval, not merely your signature.

   • The scale is set by rule; ask any firm to show you where their number sits on it.
   • A written closing statement signed by you and by the lawyer is required.
   • Confirm the current rule text before relying on any percentage quoted anywhere.
4. 04

   Health care claims and statutory liens are resolved

   This is the step that quietly decides what you keep.

   Several different entities may have a legal claim on your recovery, each created by a different body of law and each negotiated differently. Treating them as one pile is how clients end up with far less than they expected, or with a repayment demand months after the file closed.

   • Letters of protection given to treating providers who deferred payment.
   • Hospital lien ordinances, where the county has adopted one.
   • Health insurer subrogation and reimbursement, including self-funded ERISA plans, which are the hardest to reduce.
   • Medicare conditional payments under the Medicare Secondary Payer Act, with mandatory insurer reporting by the carrier.
   • Medicaid's statutory claim, limited to the portion of the recovery that represents past medical expenses.
   • A workers' compensation carrier's equitable distribution claim where comp paid for the same injury.
   • The collateral source setoff, which is a separate question from any of the above and is resolved by the court.
5. 05

   Every one of those claims gets negotiated down

   The number a lienholder first asserts is an opening position.

   Providers, plans and government payers routinely assert more than they are entitled to: unrelated treatment folded into the claim, charges that were already written off, and interest that was never owed. We audit line by line and argue reductions under the doctrines that apply to that particular claimant.

   • Unrelated and pre-existing treatment is carved out of the claim.
   • Common-fund and made-whole arguments are raised where the plan language allows them.
   • Medicare and Medicaid resolutions follow their own procedures and timelines; we start them early rather than at the end.
6. 06

   The net reaches you, with the arithmetic shown

   One page, every line, signed before disbursement.

   The closing statement lists the gross recovery, each cost, the fee, every lien and its negotiated resolution, and the net to you. You sign it before the funds move, and you keep a copy. If a line does not make sense, it does not get signed.

   • No disbursement happens before you have read and signed the statement.
   • Any future-medical or set-aside obligation is explained in writing at the same time.
   • We keep the lien releases on file so a payer cannot come back years later.

Fee percentages, lien reduction doctrines and Medicare and Medicaid recovery procedures all change. Confirm the current Rules Regulating The Florida Bar and the current federal and state recovery rules before relying on any of this.

We publish no settlement figures, verdict figures or recovery ranges anywhere on this site, including in this explainer. A number from someone else's case tells you nothing reliable about yours.