What Are Contingency Fees?
What Are The Advantages of Using this agreement
Contingency Fee Agreements allow consumers to seek justice that they might not otherwise be able to afford. Many feel that this “opens the courthouse doors” to lower-income people who otherwise would not have access to legal assistance. Ad advantage to the consumer is that if there is no award or compensation, the consumer owes the attorney nothing. The attorney is taking most if not all the financial risk.
Because the attorney is invested in your case, they may have more reasons to seek a better settlement for you. They are also seeking to obtain the highest award so they can receive a bigger paycheck too.
What Are The Disadvantages of this agreement?
The main disadvantage of contingency fees is that it may end up costing you more than standard hourly billing. If you agree to a contingency fee of one third of your eventual award, you owe that amount regardless of whether it takes one year for the case to wind its way through the courts, or if your case is settled within one week. Some lawyers may offer a flexible contingency fee depending on the result of your case, and it is worthwhile to ask if that is available when hiring a lawyer.
The other major disadvantage of contingency fees is that attorneys who use contingency fees can be very selective of the cases they take on. Attorneys who use contingency fees will try to avoid cases they believe that will not yield good results. Attorneys who do take on “risky” cases will often negotiate higher fees as a result. Many may offer a Hybrid Contingency Agreement to try to help the consumer. A Hybrid Contingency contract is where the consumer is asked to pay a certain amount to file the case and then there is a percentage awarded to the attorney out of the settlement or award.
Most National Association of Consumer Credit Attorneys offer Contingency Fee Agreements
Most of our attorneys [Find a Consumer Credit Attorney] in the National Association of Consumer Credit Attorneys offer contingency fee agreements to help consumers that may not be able to afford the cost of litigation. Keep in mind that most attorneys will not offer a contingency agreement for every issue a consumer presents to them. Some factors in an attorney’s decision to offer a contingent agreement would be their opinion whether the facts lead to likely financial compensation or not. If an attorney believes that with the given facts there would NOT be a likely payout, then they may ask for payment for their services. Many may offer a Hybrid Contingency Agreement to try to help the consumer seek justice.