A fee taken on the gross settlement with costs deducted afterward leaves you with less than a fee applied after costs come off the top. Ask the firm to run the math on a sample figure before you sign.
Advertising is regulated, loosely, by the Federal Trade Commission, which is responsible for how businesses represent themselves to consumers, but nothing in that regime requires a law firm to tell you on a billboard which attorney will actually read your medical records. Around Lawton the signs run together: a photograph, a phone number, a promise about fighting for you. None of it distinguishes one office from another. What does distinguish them is a short set of questions, asked in the free consultation, that produce genuinely different answers from firm to firm. Ask them and take notes.
1. Who handles this file on an ordinary Tuesday?
The attorney whose face is on the sign may sign the retainer and never touch the file again. That is not automatically a problem, since a well-run case is largely paralegal work: collecting records, tracking treatment, corresponding with the adjuster, calculating liens. What matters is knowing the arrangement before you sign, not discovering it in month four. Ask for the name of the person who will return your calls, ask how often the supervising attorney reviews the file, and ask whether that attorney meets you before any settlement figure is discussed. Firms answer this very differently.
2. How many cases have you actually tried?
Almost every injury claim in Oklahoma resolves by negotiation, so a lawyer who rarely sees a jury is not thereby a bad lawyer. But settlement value is shaped by what the insurer believes will happen if talks fail, and adjusters who handle Comanche County claims year after year know which firms file suit and which ones fold. Ask how many cases the attorney has tried to verdict, over what period, and in which counties. Ask separately how many were filed in district court. The two numbers together tell you more than either alone.
3. Do costs come out before or after the fee?
Contingency percentages cluster in a narrow band, which is why the percentage is the least useful thing to compare. The order of operations is where real money moves. If the fee is calculated on the gross settlement and case costs are then deducted from your remainder, you net less than if costs come off the top first and the fee applies to what is left. Costs include filing fees, records requests, deposition transcripts, and expert reports, and on a case that goes to litigation they are not trivial. Ask for the arithmetic on a hypothetical number.
4. What happens if the case is dropped or lost?
Every contingency agreement contemplates the possibility that the firm withdraws, that you decide to stop, or that a jury returns nothing. Fewer agreements say plainly what you owe when that happens. Some firms absorb advanced costs entirely. Some seek reimbursement of costs but no fee. Some assert a lien for the value of work performed if you leave and hire someone else. Ask which of those describes the contract in front of you, ask the lawyer to point to the paragraph, and read that paragraph in the office rather than at home.
What a careful reader checks after the meeting
The consultation is a conversation; the retainer is the deal. Take the agreement home, or at least ask for a copy before you sign, and compare the paper to what you were told: the fee percentage, whether it rises if suit is filed, the cost provision, the withdrawal clause, and who is named as the responsible attorney. Check that the firm has an office you can drive to rather than a phone bank in another city. Look up the attorney's standing with the Oklahoma Bar Association. Then ask one more question, in writing, and see how fast the answer comes back.
Two firms can quote the same percentage, run the same commercial, and hand you a materially different outcome on the same facts. The difference shows up in the paragraph about costs, in the name of the person who calls you back, and in whether the insurer's adjuster has any reason to think this file might end up in front of a jury. Those are all knowable before you sign anything, and asking costs nothing but an hour.