Category Archives: Frequently Asked Questions

The work that I do is completely dependent on success and we work with contingent fees.

A contingent fee agreement, essentially, is a fee arrangement between the attorney and the client where the attorney is paid if he's successful. That's different, for instance than almost any other endeavor of the law because everything else is based upon percentage or flat rate.

So, if I'm not successful, first of all, my client isn't successful, but then, my firm isn't successful.

And so, we work with a standard contingent fee arrangement where I advance all costs and that is a huge, huge undertaking because in some cases, the costs may be as much as, well, certainly tens of thousands of dollars.

I've had case after case where they were over a hundred thousand dollars and I had to have the money to put into the case.

So, we work out a percentage,...

Expenses are a critical issue in having any personal injury case in your firm. A criticism of a lot of attorneys would be that when they have a client come into their office and say "I will fight for you!"

The lawyers that are perennial winners, they are well funded and that comes from years too. The young lawyer coming out of school or the lawyer that's around for 5 or 10 years, he doesn't have the billfold. I excuse the expression, but it's that simple.

To be able to take on these cases, you have got to have the resources for those cases.

When they're trying to out spend you, you simply have to put the money up. And people that are hurt, people that are hurt, they don't have the money to hire an engineer or to even pay the doctors. You know, a lot of...

I do slip and fall cases, premises liability cases, collapsed cases, where for instance parts of building collapse. Parts of buildings collapse and somebody is badly hurt. They're difficult cases.

The core of my practice has always been auto litigation, but I've certainly have tried slip and fall cases. I think I tried the biggest rotator cuff case in a slip and fall case in the state.

I had a older woman, a 71 year old, who was hurt in Loveland, Colorado at King Soopers.

A young man was pushing boxes, a stocker, and he pushed a box into this very nice older lady and he hurt her. And she went down and she had a torn rotator cuff.

The insurance company offered her $30,000. The jury gave her over $700,000.

When that happens, you know something is, one, somebody is very badly hurt. She did have surgery, she was...

I think early on in my career I was very lucky to be there and you know I've tried a number of cases with a man named Cass Garcia. I think Cass, along the lines of being one of the best trial attorneys in the state.

Mostly he did criminal cases, but he had an incredible group of people that trusted him.

He was kind enough to let me come there and try cases and I would be the personal injury attorney and he would help select jurors. That gave me an understanding of how things worked in the San Luis Valley. I'm not talking about five or ten cases, I'm talking about dozens of cases.

And those trials, I think I'd learned things here, when I'm in federal court and the courtroom is bigger, the judges sit way up on a great big platform. I see them...

My name is David Hoover, my office is at 2145 Kipling St., Lakewood, CO and I'm an attorney. I've been an attorney for 30 years and practiced nothing but personal injury for 30 years. I've never had a case that was an hourly case, never had anything except personal injury cases, never did domestic cases, criminal cases, I've specialized and did nothing but personal injury....