What are the Upsides and Downsides of Contingency Fee Agreements?

[Music] Hi this is Stuart Albertson with Albertson and Davidson and I want to talk to you about the upside and the downside of contingency fee agreements we've got several videos that we've put out on contingency fee agreements because we want people to better understand how they can use them in a trust or will contest case in California the biggest upside to a contingency fee agreement is you don't have to pay any cash to a lawyer to take your case as long as that lawyer will take it on a contingency fee basis the downside is that you have to pay a high percentage you generally forty percent in the state of California to that attorney to take the case on that's a negotiable the contingency fees are negotiable in California and so you can ask your lawyer if they would take less than that if they would maybe do a stair-step agreement on the contingency fee agreement there's all kinds of hybrids out there but generally speaking you're gonna pay more on the contingency fee agreement and that is a bit of a downside on the other hand if nobody would take your case because you don't have money to pay them for an hourly fee then the contingency fee is probably worth it at the end of the day because there is a recovery and there is money that comes back to you another upside of the contingency fee agreement is a trust contest with difficult facts facts that may not win the case in that case if an attorney is willing to take on that risk that it's not the best case in the world let's say the attorney works that case for two years and loses that case at the time of trial the this is where the biggest upside to the contingency fee agreement comes in and that is you owe that lawyer zero dollars for that lawyers two years of work in the case you probably also owed that lawyers zero for the costs of the case that's the point of taking a contingency fee agreement the lawyer takes on the costs and if they're not successful we'll have to eat those costs and you owe the lawyer nothing if the case loses of course if the case wins then you would owe the percentage that you've agreed to pay the lawyer on any recovery to you the other issue that I personally like in a contingency fee agreement is I get to run the case the way that I like to run the case and that is if I need to do subpoenas to ten different banking institutions financial institutions if I need to get four or five medical providers get subpoenas out to four or five medical providers if I need to get subpoenas out to several drafting attorneys I don't have to worry about the cost so much as I would on an hourly case because then I would be calling the client and the client would have to consider if the costs were worth it in pursuing the ends of what we're trying to do in getting documents for example so I like contingency fee agreement because it allows me the lawyer to spend the money how I see fit how I think will improve the case and not have to worry that the clients gonna become shy about how much we're spending and costs on the case as we move the case forward overall contingency fee agreements have their place they're not right for everybody sometimes if you have money to pay for an hourly on an hourly basis you're gonna be better off doing that but for those individuals who don't have the ability to pay hourly contingency fee agreements are a nice tool available for you to enter into an agreement with a lawyer so that lawyer can fully and effectively represent you in a trust or well context. [Music] [Applause] [Music]