The fee agreement usually arrives at the worst possible moment, a few days after the wreck, when the phone is ringing with adjuster calls and the neck is still stiff and nobody has slept properly. It is three or four pages, sometimes six, and the person handing it over is friendly and in a hurry. Sign it anyway if the firm is the right one, but read it first, slowly, with a pen, because almost every question worth asking about how this case gets paid for is answered somewhere in that document.
Find out what the percentage is a percentage of
A contingency fee means the attorney is paid a share of what gets recovered and nothing at all if nothing is recovered. The number itself, whatever it is, matters less than the sentence that follows it, the one describing what the share is taken from. Some agreements calculate the fee on the gross recovery, the full settlement check before anything is subtracted. Others calculate it on the net, meaning case expenses come off the top first and the percentage applies to the remainder. On the same settlement those two methods produce different checks, and the difference is not small.
Texas requires that this be spelled out. The disciplinary rules that govern lawyers in this state say a contingent fee has to be in writing, signed by the client, and has to state the method by which the fee is determined, including whether expenses are deducted before or after the fee is calculated. So the answer is in there. If you cannot find it in plain language, that is the first question to ask, and a firm that cannot answer it in one sentence is telling you something.
Understand the step-up, and what triggers it
Most agreements list more than one percentage. A lower figure applies if the case settles before a lawsuit is filed, a higher one once suit is on file, and sometimes a third if the case is appealed. This is not a penalty. Filing suit changes the work entirely: pleadings, written discovery, depositions with a court reporter, retained experts, motions, a trial setting that may move twice. The firm is putting in far more hours and far more of its own money, at real risk, and the tiered structure prices that.
What a careful reader checks is the trigger. Does the higher rate apply on the date suit is actually filed, or on some earlier event like the case being referred to the litigation team, or a date certain after the insurer's response? Ask whether you will be told before suit is filed. Most firms will say yes, and many will put it in writing if asked, because filing is a decision you should be part of anyway.
Keep case expenses separate in your head
Expenses are not the fee. They are the money spent moving the case forward: certified medical records and billing affidavits, the crash report, filing fees with the district clerk, service of citation, court reporters, mediator fees, and expert reports, which can be the single largest line by a wide margin. The firm typically advances these and is reimbursed out of the settlement. Ask whether you owe them back if the case loses. Many Texas firms write off expenses on a losing case, but that is a choice, not a rule, and it should appear in the contract.
Ask two more things while you are there. Whether the firm charges interest on advanced expenses, and whether overhead items such as postage, copying, mileage, or a flat administrative charge are billed as case expenses. Ask for an itemized expense ledger at settlement rather than a single lump figure. Reasonable firms provide one without complaint, and having it lets you check the math on the disbursement statement before you sign a release.
Know which lines move and which do not
Some terms are fixed by professional conduct rules that the State Bar of Texas is responsible for enforcing. The agreement must be written and signed, the fee must not be unconscionable, contingent fees are barred in criminal matters and restricted in some family law contexts, and at the conclusion the client is entitled to a written statement showing the outcome, the remittance, and how it was calculated. No one negotiates those away.
Plenty else is negotiable in practice: the tier percentages, whether the fee comes off gross or net, whether a subrogation or lien reduction is handled at no extra charge, who approves expenses over a stated dollar amount, whether the case can be referred out to another firm and on what split, and how the file is handled if you change lawyers. Ask before signing rather than after.
Take the agreement home overnight. A firm confident in its terms will hand you an unsigned copy, answer questions by phone the next morning, and be glad you read it, because a client who understood the contract in week one is a client who understands the disbursement sheet at the end.