Ny Wrongful Death Settlements - Why does your lawyer get paid before you do?

Your wrongful death case has been settled but not yet approved by the court. Did you know that your attorney has to apply to the court in order to get his attorney’s fees and his expenses before you get your share of the net settlement? Would you like to learn what this is about? Come join me as I share with you this great information. Hi. I’m Gerry Oginski. I’m a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial attorney practicing law in the state of New York. Today I’m coming to you from the island of Jamaica. My wife is on the beach picking shells; I’m going to join her in a few moments. But I just wanted to share this great information with you. When you bring a wrongful death lawsuit, we are required to get approval from the court once we have settled your case. Now in years past, what would happen is it would take months and months to put through that paperwork into the surrogates’ court. And the surrogates’ court is the court that deals with estates of people who have died. And they are required to approve any particular settlement. Why? Because they are required to approve the distribution (how we distribute the money) gets allocated properly. And it would take many months to get all that paperwork into court, get it approved, and then we would have to take those papers, send it off to the defense attorneys, and then – only then – be able to get the checks and then make the distribution to you. Now, the law has changed a little bit. The law has turned around and recognized, you know what, there’s no reason for the defense to be holding onto this money while we’re preparing all this paperwork waiting for the court to approve this settlement. So now we have the ability to request from the court the attorney’s fees and expenses so that we can now get that check into our office, the court can direct that we will get our attorney fees and the expenses paid. And the money that’s remaining that’s waiting for you to distribute now goes into a special account (known as an escrow account – that’s an attorney trust account). And while that is happening we can go ahead and process the paperwork so that we can get your matter finally approved by the surrogates’ court. This way we don’t have to wait months and months for the defense to send the check to us. It’s already going to be in our trust account. So now once we get that piece of paper from the surrogates’ court that approves the settlement, now we can go ahead and cut the check to you in the way that they describe and now that will be the end of your case. So why do I share this with you? I share it with you to give you an insight and an understanding into what goes on into the litigation process in a wrongful death case. Many people don’t understand what goes on behind the scenes and this is just one of the things that happens behind the scenes. So I wanted to share this with you while I had a few minutes while my wife is picking beautiful shells on the beach. You know, chances are you’re watching this you have questions or concerns about your own potential matter. And if your matter happened in New York and you have legal questions, what I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call me. I can answer your legal questions. I answer questions like this every single day and I welcome your call. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at lawmed10@yahoo.com. I’m Gerry Oginski, coming to you from the island of Jamaica. Have a wonderful day!