I recently won a substantial workers award and my lawyer got his much deserved 25 % for his services, can I use his portion of my settlement on my taxes as a legal expense ?

"You can usually deduct legal expenses that you pay or incur to produce or collect taxable income or in connection with the determination, collection, or refund of any tax."
In your case, you can't deduct legal expenses, since what you are getting is non-taxable income.

Agreed. In order to deduct the legal costs, the subsequent award MUST be subject to taxation.