REASONABLE FEES
Lee Ciccarelli and the legal team of Ciccarelli Law Offices strives to provide the legal service people need at a reasonable fee. Attorney fees are the costs of legal representation that an attorney’s client or a party to a lawsuit incurs. Attorney’s fees are assessed in a number of ways, usually set by contract in advance of the representation, including by billable hours, flat fees, or contingent fees. Attorneys who voluntarily accept work on behalf of indigent clients often work pro bono. An upfront fee paid to a lawyer is called a retainer. Money within the retainer is often used to “buy” a certain amount of work. Some contracts provide that when the money from the retainer is gone, the fee is renegotiated.
Where permissible, we provide legal services on a contingency fee for personal injury claims; we do not get paid for our services until our clients get paid and our fee comes out of the settlement in the way of a percentage of the total settlement. In a personal injury claim, we can take a case on a contingent fee basis. A contingent fee is a percentage of the monetary judgment or settlement. The contingent fee may be split among several firms who have contractual arrangements amongst themselves for referrals or other assistance. Where a plaintiff loses, the attorney may not receive any money for his or her work.
Most jurisdictions in the United States prohibit working for a contingent fee in family law or criminal cases. In other cases, we either charge for our services on an hourly rate or based on a flat fee. In either case, we understand the tough economic times and the economic duress caused when hiring an attorney and try to work with our clients by providing alternate forms of payment such as allowing credit card payments with most credit cards such as Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express.
Learn more about the fees involved in hiring our law office by contacting us by email or by telephone (610) 692-8700.