Fair Lawyers Fee?

[Stragen]

What is the name of your state? WI

I am in the final stages of a settlement dealing with a personal injury.
My lawyer has advised me to take the settlement as he is only estimating a 50-50 chance of winning in court ( I think it's higher, but he's the proffesional).
We decided to take the settlement and be done with it but I am curious on the lawyers fees.

I have been under the impression during this process that the Lawyers fee would be taken from the pain and suffering that we recover after all my medical bills are paid. This is not the case now that I have seen the breakdown of the billings.

When we were talking about how much we would get from pain and suffering if we took it to court. He said that pain and suffering is typically twice that of the medical costs. He said he would take a 1/3 of that (I took it to mean 1/3 of the pain and suffering).

Now that we have decided to take the settlement, he is taking a 1/3 of the total settlement, not just 1/3 of the money after medical costs. Bear in mind this means the lawyer is pocketing approximatly 20 times more than me.

Now this may be a missunderstanding on my part. When we first contracted his services, we were scared, confused, and inexperienced, so my understanding on how everything worked at the begining of the process is still a little sketchy.

I guess the question is, is it normal for the lawyer to take from the total monetary amount recovered, or just from the pain and suffereing. I know it will be dependant on what the contract was (which I still need to take a look at again), but is there a general rule of thumb for what portion of the settlement lawyers take fees from?

[acmb05]

1/3 of the settlement amount. That is before any deductions you may have such as medical bills unless specifically called for in your contract.