Contingency fee contract turns painful

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted October 31, 2018 3:38 PM

Personal-injury attorneys might want to tuneup their contingency fee contracts in light of Justice Daniel L. Schmidt’s sharp dissent in Estate of Kelso v. Beuke, 2018 IL App (3d) 170161 (Oct. 25, 2018), on whether Richard Beuke was entitled to a $242,500 contingency fee based on $970,000 in underinsured motorist benefits he obtained for his clients, Sharon Kelso and William Kelso’s estate, from their auto insurer.Sharon was seriously injured, and her husband William was killed, in an Arizona auto accident that …

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