How Personal Injury Lawyer Fees Work in Illinois

Last Updated: September 14, 2026

If Parker & Parker takes your Illinois injury case, the fee is one-third of the recovery at every stage, settlement or trial. You pay nothing up front, and the consultation is free. The firm advances the case costs; they are repaid from the recovery in addition to the fee, and with no recovery you owe no fee and no costs.

“Will I end up with more money if I hire a lawyer, and does it cost anything to ask?” Both questions have short answers. Asking costs nothing, because the consultation is free and carries no obligation. Hiring costs nothing up front: the fee is a share of what is recovered, an arrangement called a contingency fee, and you owe no attorney fee if nothing is recovered. Whether you come out ahead is arithmetic you can do before you sign, and this article shows how.

The promise of no fee without a recovery is accurate, and it leaves out the details that decide what you keep. This article explains how contingency fees work, what costs are involved, what gets deducted from your settlement, and what to ask before you sign a fee agreement.

What Is a Contingency Fee?

A contingency fee means the attorney’s payment is contingent on the outcome of your case. If you recover money, through a settlement or a verdict, the attorney takes a percentage. If you recover nothing, the attorney earns nothing. There is no hourly billing, no retainer, no monthly invoices.

The arrangement exists because an injury arrives with medical bills and lost wages, and an hourly fee paid in advance would put a lawyer out of reach at the moment one is needed. A contingency fee ties the lawyer’s payment to the result instead, so the case is brought on the strength of the claim rather than on what the client can pay.

From the attorney’s perspective, a contingency fee means the attorney carries the financial risk of the case. If the case produces no recovery, the time and effort invested go unpaid, and at Parker & Parker the advanced case costs go unpaid as well; the firm absorbs them.

What Percentage Does a Personal Injury Lawyer Take in Illinois?

Illinois sets no standard percentage for an ordinary injury case. The fee is whatever you and the attorney agree to in writing. The Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct put two limits on it: the fee must be reasonable (Rule 1.5(a)), and a contingent fee must be set out in a writing you sign (Rule 1.5(c)).

The percentage can change with the stage of the case, and Rule 1.5(c) requires the signed agreement to state the percentage that applies if the case settles, if it goes to trial, and if it is appealed. Read all three numbers before you sign, because a case that starts as a claim can end in a courtroom.

Parker & Parker charges one-third at every stage. The contingency fee on a personal injury case is one-third of the recovery whether the case resolves before suit, after suit is filed, or at trial.

No Illinois statute caps the fee in an ordinary injury case: a car crash, a truck crash, a fall on someone else’s property. There the fee is the percentage in your signed agreement, subject to the reasonableness rule. Medical malpractice has a statutory cap: since January 18, 2013, 735 ILCS 5/2-1114 has limited the total contingent fee in a medical malpractice case to one-third of all sums recovered.

Rule 1.5(c) also says what the signed agreement has to contain. It states the percentage at each stage; the expenses that will be deducted from the recovery; whether those expenses come out before or after the fee is figured; and any expenses you owe whether or not the case succeeds. Read it before you sign it, and ask about anything that is unclear.

What Is the Difference Between Fees and Costs?

The contingency fee is the attorney’s compensation for their time and expertise. Personal injury cases also involve out-of-pocket costs, expenses incurred to build and pursue your claim. These are separate from the fee, and the two are easy to confuse.

Common case costs include filing fees for the lawsuit; costs for obtaining medical records and police reports; expert witness fees (doctors, accident reconstructionists, economists, vocational experts); deposition and court reporter fees; process server fees; postage, copying, and travel expenses; and mediation or arbitration fees.

Illinois lets a lawyer advance these costs during the case and make repayment depend on the outcome (Rule 1.8(e) of the Rules of Professional Conduct). Parker & Parker advances the costs of your case. If money is recovered, the fee is one-third of the recovery, and the advanced costs are repaid from the recovery in addition to that fee. If there is no recovery, you owe no fee and no costs; the firm absorbs them. Whatever firm you hire, Rule 1.5(c) requires the signed agreement to state three things: the expenses that will be deducted; whether they come out before or after the fee is figured; and any expenses you owe whether or not the case succeeds. Read those lines before you sign.

Costs rise with the work the case needs. A claim that settles on the medical records and bills costs less to run than a case that needs several experts, a round of depositions, and a trial. The signed agreement lists the kinds of expenses that will be deducted, so you can see the categories before any of them are spent.

How Much of My Settlement Do I Actually Keep?

What you keep is the settlement minus three things: the attorney fee, the case costs, and the medical bills and liens that have to be paid out of the settlement. The fee is fixed by the agreement, the costs depend on the work the case needed, and the liens depend on who paid for your care and what they agree to accept.

Understanding where your settlement money goes is important. Here is a simplified example of how a $100,000 settlement might break down.

Start with $3,000 in case costs and a one-third fee. If the fee is figured on the gross recovery (the full $100,000, before costs come out), the fee is $33,333. If it is figured on the net recovery (the $97,000 left after costs), the fee is $32,333. Rule 1.5(c) requires your fee agreement to say which method applies. At Parker & Parker the fee is figured on the full recovery and the advanced costs are repaid in addition to it, so $33,333 is the figure the rest of this example uses.

Medical bills and liens come out next. A hospital or doctor who treated you on a lien (a claim on the settlement in place of payment now) may have a right to be repaid from the settlement. So may a health plan, Medicare or Medicaid that paid for your care. Whether a particular payer has that right depends on your policies and the rules that govern that payer. Lienholders often accept less than the billed amount; how much less depends on the type of lien and the size of the recovery. Resolving those claims is part of the attorney’s work on the case.

Using the example above: $100,000 settlement minus $3,000 costs minus $33,333 fee equals $63,667 before liens. If $20,000 in medical liens were paid in full, you would keep $43,667, and every dollar the liens are reduced adds a dollar to that figure. Our article on what makes a personal injury case worth more discusses the factors that drive the total recovery higher.

Does Hiring a Lawyer Leave You With More Money?

The comparison is the offer you can get on your own against what remains of a lawyer’s recovery after the one-third fee, the case costs, and the liens. You can make it before you decide. An adjuster (the insurance company’s claim handler) dealing with an unrepresented person may make an offer that has never been tested against the medical records, the wage loss, or the prospect of a lawsuit. A lawyer’s job is to test it.

And for the day-to-day of it, see what you actually get for the fee.

An attorney brings several things that an unrepresented claimant cannot replicate: knowledge of what the case is actually worth based on comparable verdicts and settlements; the ability to present medical evidence in a way that demonstrates the full impact of the injuries; access to experts who can testify about future medical needs and lost earning capacity; the credible threat of filing a lawsuit and going to trial; and the skill to negotiate medical liens down, increasing your net recovery.

Here is the arithmetic with invented numbers, drawn from no actual case. Set liens aside, since they come out on either path. Costs come out only when a lawyer runs the case; at Parker & Parker they are advanced and repaid from the recovery in addition to the fee, so take the figures below as before costs. If an insurer offers $30,000 to a person handling the claim alone, and a lawyer settles the same claim for $60,000, the client keeps $40,000 after a one-third fee, $10,000 more than the offer. If the lawyer settles it for $40,000, the client keeps $26,667, and the fee has cost the client money. Neither figure is a prediction. The point is that the comparison is one you can make, and the free consultation is where you make it: Robert Parker will tell you how he sees the case, and you decide. The insurance settlement timeline explains how the negotiation runs.

What Should You Ask Before Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer?

Every attorney should be willing to answer these questions clearly and without pressure. If they dodge or deflect, that tells you something.

What is the contingency fee percentage, and does it change based on how far the case goes? Is the fee calculated on the gross settlement or the net amount after costs? Who pays the case costs if the case is unsuccessful? How are case costs handled, do you advance them or am I expected to contribute? Will you personally handle my case, or will it be delegated to another attorney or staff member? How often will you communicate with me about the status of my case? Do you have experience with cases like mine?

The consultation at Parker & Parker is free and carries no obligation. Take the fee agreement home, read it, and decide with clear eyes. The personal injury practice overview explains how Robert Parker approaches a case and what you can expect from the process.

What About Medical Malpractice Fee Caps?

Illinois caps the fee in a medical malpractice case by statute. Since January 18, 2013, 735 ILCS 5/2-1114 has limited the total contingent fee to one-third of all sums recovered. The older sliding scale was replaced in that 2013 amendment. The same amendment removed the provision that had let a court approve a larger fee for extraordinary services.

The cap belongs to medical malpractice cases. It does not reach an ordinary injury claim such as a car crash, a truck crash, or a fall on someone else’s property, where the fee is the percentage in your signed agreement. If your case is a medical malpractice case, the fee agreement has to stay within the statutory cap, and your attorney should walk you through it at the consultation.

What Is the Bottom Line on Fees?

A contingency fee lets a person hire a lawyer without paying in advance. At Parker & Parker you pay nothing up front, and you owe no fee and no costs if there is no recovery. If money is recovered, the fee is one-third and the advanced costs are repaid in addition. The attorney is paid from the result, so the attorney’s interest runs with yours.

Fee agreements are contracts, and contracts have details that matter. Read yours. Ask how the fee is calculated, how costs are handled, and what happens if the case is unsuccessful; the answers belong in the writing you sign. The next step is a conversation: call the office at 309-673-0069 to set up a free consultation with Robert Parker, bring the questions above, and read the fee agreement before you sign it. You do not need a claim number or paperwork to call, and a family member may call for someone who is hurt.

Frequently Asked Questions

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