The legal fees that are paid to a lawyer for a case if subject to money awarded are called contingent fees. In case there is a monetary award, the lawyer gets a percentage of the recovery. There is no written law about the contingent fees the attorney can charge a client. However, the rates are quite uniform because of the competition in this field. The lawyer charges more contingent money in those cases where he needs to spend more time or more money. In certain cases, such as worker compensation claims or claims under the federal law, the fees are regulated by the law.
These contingent fees generally increase in case of complicated cases and those that involve a trial or appeal. Simple cases, without much added expenditure attract a contingency fee of 33 1/3% of the total recovery. In medical malpractice cases, there is lot of money involved and the contingent fees based upon the outcome, have to reflect the risk and are kept high. The contingent fees include the expenses incurred by the lawyer during the case.
Many clients are unsure whether the contingency fee is calculated on the total amount of recovery or after subtracting the expenses. In most cases, contingent fees are calculated on the total amount recovered. A lawyer?s time and expertise has to be considered. If the costs in the case came out of the lawyer's fee, expensive cases would pay the lawyer little or no fee. Since a lawyer's time and expertise are part of his work, his compensation must be calculated accordingly.
It is worth considering the fact that if costs were to be borne out of the lawyers share, the lawyer would not want to spend the money. If the case is lost, then the client need not pay the lawyer.
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