If you decide that you need to hire a lawyer for something, the process might intimidate you a little if you have never done it before. However, as long as you take the time to thoroughly research any lawyer or law firm that you elect to hire, you should do fine. It is highly like that you will need to hire an attorney at some point in your life, if not more than once.
When you hire a lawyer, you will need to figure out how you’re going to pay them. Different attorneys will want you to pay them according to different structures, so let’s talk about some of the those right now. We will also talk about when each of these payment setups makes the most sense.
A By-the-Hour Rate
Lawyers might charge anywhere from $150-$500 an hour or more if they want you to pay them by the hour. If you’re dealing with a neophyte lawyer, then they will probably not ask for a very high per-hour rate. If you’re asking them to do something that’s not very complicated or difficult, that’s another situation where they probably won’t ask for a rate that seems too exorbitant.
However, if you’re retaining a lawyer for something like criminal defense, that’s when the price can skyrocket, especially if you’re hiring an attorney or firm that has an excellent reputation. You may have little choice but to pay them the rate they’re requesting, though. If you go with a cheaper lawyer, and you’re on trial for something really egregious, then you retaining a cheaper lawyer could prove disastrous.
If you’re hiring a lawyer to help you with your tax return or you want some assistance in making out your will, that’s when you’ll usually get a price on the lower end of the scale. That’s because, presumably, you can find another attorney to handle this piece of business for you relatively easily if the one you’ve selected demands too much money.
A Contingency Payment Plan
You’ll normally pay a lawyer via contingency if you hire them to represent you in a personal injury case. If you’re the plaintiff, this means you only pay your attorney an agreed-upon percentage of your winnings if they win your case for you. They will do that either by forcing a settlement offer from the defendant that you accept, or else they’ll secure a jury’s verdict in your favor.
Contingency payment plans make sense in the personal injury space because if you lose your lawsuit, you presumably don’t want to pay your lawyer anything. If you’re already destitute, and you sustained an injury or you’re dealing with an illness because of what happened, it would make little sense if you had to pay your lawyer anything on top of that if they didn’t do the job successfully.
You’ll usually pay your attorney 30%-40% of your winnings in a personal injury case, though that varies. You can sometimes get an attorney who will charge less if they’re new to this particular legal niche.
A Set Rate for a Job
You might also hire a lawyer and tell them that you will pay them a set rate to do the job for which you’re retaining them. If you hire an attorney to help you with your taxes because they’re particularly complicated one year, then you might pay them by the hour, but you may also pay them a set rate to do the job.
Your lawyer might feel that’s reasonable if they can calculate the approximate amount of time that they will need to spend doing this job for you. If they want to do an hourly rate, though, you will need to decide whether that’s okay or if you want to find a different attorney who will agree to a set rate instead.
Having a Lawyer on Retainer
You can also pay a lawyer to have them on retainer. Usually, corporations will have a law firm or a lawyer on retainer, especially if they know that individuals or entities file lawsuits against them often.
Frankly, if you don’t own a large company, it’s not too likely you will ever pay a lawyer a contingency fee. It basically means that you have this attorney or their firm at your beck and call. Whenever you need them, you can reach out to them, and they will prioritize doing the work you need before they do something for anyone else.
