Although Alberta’s lawyers use a variety of different fee structures, each such structure contains the same 2 elements. Certain aspects of each element might be discussed during a free, client-lawyer consultation.
What are the basic elements in each fee structure?
There are specifications on the time when the client must deliver the anticipated payment. Additionally, the details on the procedure being used to determine the size of that same payment. Those details can become the focus of a discussion, when the prospective client attends a no-cost consultation of a personal injury lawyer in Red Deer.
Five different fee structures that get utilized at some point by the lawyers in Alberta:
Charging clients on an hourly basis– Used by attorneys that handle civil and criminal cases. During the cost-free consultation, the prospective client should ask for an estimate of the number of hours that the attorney would need to devote to that client’s case. That would include the time spent tracking down papers or expert witnesses.
Flat fee—This fee gets paid upfront; it covers all the times when the lawyer will serve as the client’s legal representative. That would be times when the lawyer’s own money gets used to pay for a variety of services, such as arranging for the copying or recovery of legal papers. When the nature of a lawyer’s practice ensures the predictability of the clients’ cases, that same lawyer will charge a flat fee.
Retainer fee—This term refers to the advance payment that can go to a lawyer that plans to charge on an hourly basis. As the case progresses, the retainer fee gets used to cover the lawyer’s expense. As a result, the amount of money retained decreases. At the conclusion of the client’s case, any money not retained gets returned to the client.
Statutory fee—This is a fixed fee; its size gets determined by the law. It only gets used in a limited number of cases. In certain locations, the statutory fee must be OK’d by the court.
Contingency fees—Each of those is some percent of a client’s judgement or settlement. During the no-cost consultation, the prospective client has the opportunity to hear the lawyer’s opinion, regarding what that percent should be. The client and attorney can then negotiate the percent of the judgement or settlement that the prospective client will agree to.
Contingency fees get used frequently in personal injury cases. The structure associated with such fees may also be used by a lawyer that handles employment cases and real estate cases, or by any of those lawyers that have agreed to provide legal advice on matters such as probate or business litigation. The contingency fee should not be used by an attorney that handles divorce cases.