NWCDN Members regularly post articles and summary judgements in workers’ compensations law in your state.
Select a state from the dropdown menu below to scroll through the state specific archives for updates and opinions on various workers’ compensation laws in your state.
Contact information for NWCDN members is also located on the state specific links in the event you have additional questions or your company is seeking a workers’ compensation lawyer in your state.
DWC is considering amending 28 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 152 concerning attorney fees and sought comments through last month on whether changes to the current hourly rate for attorney fees are necessary.
We note that when the Act was implemented in 1991, the approved hourly rate for attorney fees was $150. That rate remained in place for 26 years, until 2017, when it was increased to $200.
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator, $200 in January, 2017, has the same buying power as $266.89 in December, 2025. Further, $200 in December, 2025, has the same buying power as did $149.88 in January, 2017. In other words, due to inflation, it’s as if the rate was never increased.
By comparison, the maximum weekly temporary income benefit in 1991 was $428, and the minimum was $64. By 2016, the maximum weekly benefit had risen to $895, and the minimum to $134. Today, the maximum weekly benefit is $1,271, and the minimum is $191. So, benefit levels have nearly tripled since 1991, while the attorney hourly rate has increased only once and remains at $200 nearly a decade later. Meanwhile, that rate must cover the overhead required to operate and maintain an effective law practice which has increased in ways that were inconceivable in 1991.
Workers’ compensation now has the second lowest average hourly rate of any practice area at an average of $180, second only to juvenile law at $146, while the average hourly rate for all practice areas is $367. Hourly Rates in Texas.
The overarching concern is that if the rate cap is not raised, the workers’ compensation bar will continue to shrink, as it is doing now, as older, experienced attorneys retire and new attorneys choose other practice areas over workers’ compensation law because it is more difficult to make the numbers work. At that point, employees, employers, and carriers will no longer be able to obtain effective legal representation in this highly complex area of the law.
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