HERE ARE A FEW GOOD REASONS TO SEEK OUT THE SERVICES OF A CONTINGENCY FEE ATTORNEY BEFORE PAYING HOURLY LAWYER FEES. EXPLORE YOUR LEGAL OPTIONS.
- When a lawyer agrees to take your legal case on a contingency fee basis, they are essentially taking the risk that you have a good case (instead of you paying hourly legal fees hoping that you have a good legal case).
- You do not pay up front fees to a contingency fee attorney. Now, there may be some initial case filing fees and service of process fees, that you will be responsible for, but for the most part you will not have to come up with a large up-front advance retainer fee in order to retain the services of an attorney.
- Your contingency fee lawyer will be just as incentivized as you are to make as much as they possibly can on a case, which may promote harder work by the contingent fee law firm. For example, if your Contingency fee attorney is working on a 33% contingency fee basis, they will take a third of the final recovery, which means the more money the lawyer is able to settle the case for, the more money both the Attorney and Client will realize. To get a higher dollar settlement, the attorney may be motivated to work harder and come up with clever legal strategies that help win the case at trial or promote a larger settlement without the need for trial.
- The contingency fee case may tend to be settled quicker and work its way through the courts faster than a case where the attorney or law firm are working on an hourly basis? Why is that? A contingency lawyer is relying on a settlement to get paid, and may be motivated to work as hard as possible in the shortest amount of time to achieve the desired result. A lawyer working on an hourly fee basis is paid for each hour they spend on a case (and it is common knowledge that many big firms impose billable hour requirements on their attorneys), and this means that in some cases, the incentive is to “rack up the billable hours” rather than promote quick and efficient settlements. Of course all attorneys are bound by ethical rules to only bill time that is reasonably required or necessary to a case but at the same time attorney have built up their reputations for a reason.
- One of the other problems with billable hours is that most attorneys “round-up” their time when calculating their billable hours. What this means is if you make a 2 minute phone call to your hourly rate attorney, the attorney may round-up to the nearest 1/10th of an hour and bill you for 6 minutes of time. Check your retainer agreement as each law firm is different. This means, all those two minute phone calls and emails to your attorney can really add up, even though certain time is not actually spent working on your case. This may seem a little counter-intuitive, but this type of billing is permitted in most states. A contingency fee attorney on the other hand may not be keeping track of time spent on your case (unless they are seeking to recoup their attorney fees in your case) and therefore you do not have to watch every legal bill like a hawk to make sure the time “adds up” so to speak.
- With a non-contingency fee law firm or case handled on a billable hour assignment (rather than on a contingency fee basis) you will typically get a monthly invoice itemizing all the time spent on your case and the bill may result in “payment shock” as those $250-$350 per hour fees can add up pretty fast. When hiring a contingency fee lawyer, you may never see a monthly invoice, which means you do not have to go into a panic every time you see a letter in your mailbox from your lawyer.
- Most people think only personal injury lawyers take cases on a contingency fee basis. This is not true. There are many other legal categories where attorneys, law firms and lawyers may agree to take your legal matter on a contingency retainer basis. For example, you may be able to find the following types of lawyers willing to consider taking your legal case on a contingency fee basis:
- Contingency Fee Contract Lawyer
- Contingency Fee Real Estate Lawyer
- Contingency Fee Business Lawyer
- Contingency Fee Copyright and Trademark Attorneys (Intellectual property)
- Patent Lawyers who may take your case on a contingency fee basis
- Employment Discrimination lawyer to take case on contingency fee
- Contingency Fee Loan Modification Lawyer
- Eminent Domain lawyer to take condemnation case on contingency fee
- Arbitration Lawyers who are able to take case on contingency due to attorney fees clauses in your arbitration agreement
- Consumer Law cases that can be taken on a contingency fee basis
- Constitutional law cases that may be taken on a contingency fee basis
- Class action lawsuits on a contingency fee
- Sports Lawyers who take cases on contingency fee
- Entertainment lawyers who may consider taking your case on a contingency fee basis
- Litigation lawyers may work on contingency agreement
- Libel and Defamation Lawyers who may work on a contingency fee arrangement
The list goes on. The point is, in these tough economic times, (which may endure well last into the next decade), many lawyers who refused to take cases on a contingency fee basis may be re-thinking their practices and consider offering to take one or more types of legal cases on a contingency fee basis.
For more information about finding a contingency fee lawyer who may agree to take your case on a contingency fee basis, investigate www.ContingencyCase.com where you can “Explore your legal options.”
