QUESTION
How much contingency fee must an attorney get?
Asked on Jul 10th, 2017 on Personal Injury - Indiana
More details to this question:
My attorney issued me a fee agreement asking for 33% of my settlement, in addition to expenses incurred in trial preparation/litigation. The agreement specifies that I am to be personally liable for any expenses even if I do not receive compensation for my case, or if my settlement amount is insufficient to fully compensate my attorney for any of these expenses. I am wondering if this is a legal agreement because I have always been under the impression that, under contingency fee agreements, attorneys will only get compensation to the extent that the case settles, meaning there is no set of circumstances in which I would essentially be in the negative after pursuing my legal matter.
1 ANSWER
Criminal and General Civil Litigation Attorney serving Warsaw, IN
Partner at
Rockhill Pinnick LLP
3 Awards
It is actually illegal for an attorney to finance your case, i.e. give you money for expenses etc. to prompt a case to be pursued. So this agreement is fairly standard. Having said that, our firm has never had a client pay the full share of such costs, and no money is spent for which a client might have to bear responsibility after a lost case without obtaining approval from the client of the expenditure. You should ask your attorney more questions about what is intended here to try to clear up any confusion.
Answered on Sep 25th, 2017 at 6:24 PM