Settling Directly With an Insurer While Represented by a Lawyer

Attorney Answer

You can fire your lawyer at any time and you can talk to the insurer yourself — but going around a lawyer you have not fired usually fails, and the fee does not disappear just because you settle the claim on your own.

While you are represented, an adjuster will normally refuse to negotiate with you directly and will route everything back to your attorney. So the practical choice is not "deal with the insurer instead of the lawyer." It is: press your lawyer for movement, or discharge the lawyer and then deal with the insurer.

If you discharge, the fee question does not vanish. NRS 18.015 creates an attorney's lien on a client's claim or cause of action. The attorney perfects it by serving written notice — in person or by certified mail, return receipt requested — on the client and, where applicable, on the party against whom the client has a cause of action, claiming the lien and stating its amount. The lien attaches to any verdict, judgment, decree, money, or property recovered "from the time of service of the notices required by this section."

That timing language decides real cases. In Leventhal v. Black & LoBello, 129 Nev. 472, 305 P.3d 907 (2013), the Supreme Court of Nevada held that a charging lien is not self-executing. It attaches only from the time the statutory notices are served, and only to an affirmative recovery of money or property in the underlying matter. The court reversed a judgment enforcing a firm's lien where the firm had not made even a colorable attempt to perfect it until eight months after the settlement had already occurred. The firm could still pursue its fees by other means — it just could not do it through an untimely charging lien. Two cautions: Leventhal arose from a divorce, not a personal injury settlement, and NRS 18.015 was amended in the same year it was decided, so do not treat it as a formula for avoiding a fee.

One more thing worth hearing. "Dilly-dallying" is often a lawyer waiting for you to finish medical treatment before sending a demand, because settling before then locks in a number that ignores care you still need. Ask before you assume.

What you can do

1. Write to your lawyer and ask four specific questions: has a demand been sent and when, what records are still outstanding, what is the limitations date on the calendar, and what is the plan and timeline. Ask for a written answer. 2. If the answer is that they are waiting on your treatment, that is usually the correct call. Ask when your doctor expects you to be done. 3. Before firing anyone, get a second opinion from another Nevada injury attorney. Many will take over a file, and a substitution is cleaner than going unrepresented. 4. If you do discharge, do it in writing and request your complete file. 5. Read your fee agreement now. It governs what the firm can claim if you end the relationship, alongside any lien under NRS 18.015. 6. Do not sign a release with the insurer before you know every claim against the settlement — the former firm's fee, medical provider bills, and any health plan reimbursement. Signing first and sorting it out later is how people end up with nothing.

⏱ Time limits apply. Nevada's deadline for filing the personal injury lawsuit keeps running throughout settlement talks and while you change lawyers, and no insurer will remind you of it. Confirm the exact date with counsel; it depends on your specific facts.