How are you going to pay for your lawsuit? Unfortunately, lawsuits in the modern age are very expensive. It costs a lot of money to hire a lawyer, to pay for all the discovery that you have to do, issue subpoenas, take depositions, hire expert witnesses, pay court filing fees. Everything costs time and money. A typical civil lawsuit can be very expensive. How are you going to finance this cost if you’re not independently wealthy and you don’t have the money to pay for it yourself?
Hiring a Lawyer with Other Beneficiaries
Obviously, if you had a rich uncle or somebody who is willing to step in and pay for your lawsuit for you or give you a personal loan, that would be one way that you could fund a lawsuit. Another way is if you could join with others who have suffered similar harm. For example, in a trust or will lawsuit, a lot of times more than one beneficiary has been harmed and they’re all being harmed in the same way. If you were to pool your resources and go in together to hire a lawyer, that would be a way to reduce the costs per beneficiary. Rather than just one beneficiary filing a lawsuit, two or three or four people could join together and take the same legal action with the same lawyer. That would be another way to reduce litigation costs.
Contingency Fee Arrangement
A third way to cover your litigation costs is to seek a lawyer who is willing to handle your case on a contingency fee basis. With a contingency fee arrangement, the lawyer agrees to take a percentage of the assets that he or she recovers for you as payment of the legal fee. The percentage varies depending on the complexity of the case and the assets at issue. The contingency fee may range from 35% to 45%, depending on the case.
Hiring a lawyer on a contingency basis can be a great option. Number one, you don’t have to pay for a lawyer out of your own pocket. It limits your exposure financially. It also creates a great incentive for the lawyer to jump in there, become a partner with you in the lawsuit and get as much as he or she possibly can for your benefit.
