Hello and thank you for entrusting me to answer your question. My goal is to answer your question completely and thoroughly and to provide excellent service.

Of course, each situation is different and so I can only comment generally in regard to your question, but if a client and attorney have vastly different ideas about what the case is worth, that may conceivably cause some friction within the working relationship. However, I would think it is very doubtful that such friction would cause the attorney working on the case to put forth any less of an effort toward it.

As you noted, in contingency fee cases, the interests of the attorney and client are in line, so the attorney is going to push as hard to get as much money as possible.

I do not doubt that you have conducted substantial research on the value of your case, and I do not mean to call into question your conclusions which I am sure are very well founded, but you should give your attorney's opinion with regard to the value of your case some substantial weight and consideration. This is what your attorney does for a living and it is in their interest to maximize what you get.

It may be that the reason for the difference in opinion regarding your case's value is due to things that are not readily perceivable to someone who does not handle these cases for a living. Judging the value of a case is an art much more than a science, and each case and circumstance is different. Each court and judge is different, and so is each defendant's counsel. These things all come into play when deciding how to settle a case and an attorney is typically in a much better position to take all of these nuances into account.

You of course are free to find another another at any time, but you will owe your present attorney the value of the legal services that he has provided you to date even if you do switch. So, for example, if your current attorney has invested 60 hours of time on your case, he would be entitled to a reasonable hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours and will demand payment in that amount once your case settles. This can create a headache that is often not worth going through simply because of some friction.

So, to answer your question again directly, while such differing assessments of the value of a case might cause some friction, it is unlikely to affect the attorney's performance on the case. You should give substantial weight to the attorney's assessment of value even though you have conducted research because attorneys are better equipped to assess all of the nuances that go into valuing a case. If you want to switch attorneys, you can do so, but you will need to pay your attorney for the value of his services provided, which is often not worth the hassle of dealing with.

I sincerely XXXXX XXXXX this information helps you and I wish you the best.

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