How Will I Pay For a Lawyer?
It's not a bad question. Most of our clients have just lost their jobs, after all. Rest assured, if you've been treated illegally, you have options.
As part of each and every consultation we do, we will explain the options you have for obtaining legal representation that you can afford.
We take most our cases on a contingent fee basis. This payment option ultimately makes the most sense for the majority of our clients–we assume the risk of representation because contingent-fee clients don't pay unless we recover some amount of money.
Below, you can read about the differences between contingent-fee, hourly, flat-fee, and hybrid arrangements that respect the risk, reward, and realities of each case.
An educated client is the best kind of client to have — on this page, read about the differing kinds of attorney fees so you are an educated consumer of legal services.
Contingent Fee REPRESENTATION
We take all of our full-representation cases on a 40% contingency, meaning we don't recover any attorneys' fees unless we recover something for our client, in which case, we take 40% of anything we've recovered.
During pre-litigation phases of representation, we require no retainer and no cost deposit.
Our contingent-fee is exclusive of case costs. That means that the hard costs and disbursements of pursuing a client's claims—costs like court filing fees, postage, court reporter fees, a mediator's fee, and other such costs—are paid by the client, whether during the matter, after the matter is resolved, or some mix of the two depending on the circumstances.
A contingent fee arrangement makes sense for a lot of clients because the scope of the hourly work that needs to be completed on any given matter is very difficult to predict. That means hourly fees could skyrocket as a matter takes longer to resolve or because of unpredictable actions by the opposing party.
By entering a contingent fee arrangement with us, you are essentially entering a shared risk pool with other Haller Kwan LLP clients. Some cases resolve efficiently, others take a long time to resolve. Some never resolve favorably. By being able to pool the risk of running an employee-friendly plaintiffs' firm, we can stay in business continuing to help others.
We can only take cases on a contingency arrangement under limited circumstances:
When the prospects of a resolution are high; and
The recovery is likely to be a sum of money.
Otherwise, we wouldn't get paid for our efforts.
Hourly EngagementS
Depending on availability and our case load, we are sometimes able to offer limited, hourly assistance for employment counseling and negotiation. Currently, our hourly fees range from $350 to $450 per hour. Depending on the realities of each case, any work done on an hourly basis will typically require a retainer payment which will be held in trust and earned as work is done.
Flat Fee Services
We offer flat-fee consultations as a way for people to get access to sound legal advice and strategy.
For example, you can book a one-hour consultation for $850 to review and understand an employment contract or for $450 to get our undivided attention for one hour “Navigation” session and tell your story to learn how the law applies to your situation and learn if there’s more help we can offer.
Hybrid Fee Arrangements
A hybrid fee is a mix of an hourly and a contingent fee — you agree to pay a reduced hourly rate (for example: $225/hour instead of $450/hour), coupled with a reduced contingency fee (for example: 20% instead of 40%). Depending on the realities of each case, any work done on an hourly basis will typically require a retainer payment which will be held in trust and earned as work is completed. This fee arrangement spreads the risk across both attorney and client while reducing the client’s exposure to runaway hourly fees by incentivizing efficient solutions with a contingent-fee bonus for the attorney.