It depends on the state of the car accident. For example, in Florida, attorney's cannot charge more than 33 1/3% of any settlement before a lawsuit. In most car accident cases, the attorney only takes a fee on the personal injury claim. In other words, attorneys rarely charge a fee on a settlement for damage to the car. After a personal injury lawsuit, the attorney's fee usually increases to 40%. Costs are in addition to the lawyer fee. Here in an example: My client broke his leg in a car accident in Florida. To protect his rights, I sued. Thus, my fees could have been 40% of the total settlement. This would have been $120,000. However, we settled for $300,000 quickly after suing. Therefore, I only charged 33 1/3% of the total settlement. Therefore, my attorney's fee was $100,000. Since I sued, costs were much higher than usual. And sadly, the at fault driver died from the car accident. Thus, I had to hire a personal representative to keep his probate estate open. In addition, the cost to file (and serve) the lawsuit was around $500. My total costs in this case were around $4,928. You'll be happy to hear that costs in most car accident cases are not this high. This is because most car accident cases don't involve a lawsuit. After my attorney's fees in this car accident case, and paying his medical bills, my client received over $187,000 in his pocket. Take a look: