Have you been approached by a person asking you to sign a petition to get a measure on the ballot for the November election? BEWARE IN 2026. Uber is targeting personal injury and trial lawyers’ fees. Their initiative is called “Preventing Accident Victim’s from Self-Dealing Attorneys Act.”
Historically, personal injury attorneys provide legal services on a “contingency fee” basis. That means they charge a percentage of the recovery. The beauty of contingency fee is that it gives injured victims a key to the courthouse. Most injury victims and families cannot afford a lawyer who bills by the hour. Contingency fee lawyers only get paid if they recover a settlement or judgment, and often invest years of work and hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money in a case.
Uber’s proposed law states victims must keep 75% of the “total recovery,” which sounds like 25% goes to pay their attorneys’ fees. This is not so.
When an accident victim requires medical treatment and cannot afford it, or has no health insurance, medical providers treat them with the understanding they will be paid at the time the case is finalized. These providers accept a “lien.” Under Uber’s proposal, these medical charges are not recoverable costs and would come out of the attorneys’ 25%, as well as the attorneys’ costs, which in many cases, are substantial.
These limits only apply to the injured person’s side of the case. Large corporations and insurance companies can continue to spend without restriction.
The more the lawyer does to help the client get care, the less they will get paid. Consequently, this law would also make it nearly impossible to find reputable doctors to provide treatment on a lien.
An example, applying the above:
Recovery Amount: $1,000,000
Attorney Fee (25%): $250,000
Medical Bills: – $25,000
Attorney Costs: – $85,000
Net To Attorney: $40,000
Net To Client: $750,000 –
This proposal will make it unfeasible for trial lawyers to handle many automobile accident cases, leaving the injured victims with fewer options to obtain fair compensation for their injuries. It gives the corporation a license to kill by making it next to impossible to get legal representation and blocks fair access to our civil justice system.