Many people hesitate to contact an attorney because they feel they cannot afford an attorney or do not understand how an attorney charges for services. As a courtesy to our prospective clients, The Law Offices of Paul Gertz, P.C. wants prospective clients to understand our fees for services before we are retained.
The types of fee arrangements our firm offers are: flat fee (also known as fixed fee,) hourly fee and contingency fee.
Flat fees or fixed fees are charged for certain legal service projects, such as a mechanic’s lien preparation, writing demand letters to debtors, and consulting on legal matters in general. For instance, our typical fixed or flat fee for preparation and filing of a mechanic’s lien is between $750 and $1,000 for the project.
Hourly fee agreements are time-based fees. This means our office charges a set hourly rate for the legal work done for a client. When a prospective client sits down to discuss with us their legal problem, there will be a full and candid discussion of how much the total range of calculated fees might be for the particular legal situation.
In some instances, the client may be asked to pay an advance or down payment on hourly fees – this is called a retainer. The retainer paid by the client is placed in our firm’s Trust Account and is held to pay off attorney’s fees as the work is done and fees are incurred. Thus, the retainer is an advance payment on fees from which the client’s legal bills will be deducted. Paul or Angela will be glad to explain this type of fee agreement during the initial client conference.
Contingency fee agreements are oftentimes used for personal injury claims and certain types of civil claims. With a contingency fee, our law office will take our fee and expenses out of the amount recovered through a lawsuit or settlement. If you lose the claim or lawsuit, we forfeit our attorney fees. In most cases, you are still responsible for any out-of-pocket expenses. The more common contingent fees charged are between 25 percent and 33 1/3 percent of the gross recovery, but can run as high as 40 percent if the case is complex, time-consuming or risky. Contingency fee agreements are commonly used in accident and personal injury, medical malpractice, employment discrimination, collection cases and workers’ compensation claims (which are limited to a 20 percent fee.)
At the Law Offices of Paul Gertz, P.C. we believe in full disclosure and we understand that legal fees can be expensive– that is why we ensure you understand exactly what you are being charged for and we urge our clients and prospective clients to have up-front discussions about fees, expenses and your ability to pay. We want to do everything possible to ensure that you, as our client, believe you are getting the best possible representation for a reasonable amount. We are here to serve you.
As a convenience to our clients, we accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
