JoeKing - feel free to call your local bar association - www.wsba.org to complain about your accident attorney if you were unhappy. The Rules of Professional Conduct state a contingency fee is allowed but it must be reasonable and clear to the client. Generally, a lawyer takes his third off the top of the settlement, then the filing fees come out of the client's portion with the rest of the settlement to the client. The courts charge some pretty high filing fees that attorneys front in a contingency fee set up, and if you hadn't won, the attorney would likely have been out those fees.
In the future know, you can always front the filing fees yourself and represent yourself if you ever want the entire settlement.