Law Blog 4 Fighting Abuse

When it comes to hiring a lawyer in a criminal matter, you should not make decisions that could impact you for the rest of your life based upon financial considerations.  Financial arrangements can be made: your focus needs to be on defending yourself to the best of your abilities. There are a variety of ways that criminal attorneys charge their clients. The list of common ways a majority of attorneys charge for their services are hourly fees, contingency fees, and flat fees. This article will briefly address each way that attorneys charge clients, and will then discuss the ways in which criminal attorneys most commonly charge their clients.

Hourly Fees

The way in which most attorneys bill their clients is through hourly fees. Criminal attorneys in particular typically charge their clients using hourly fees. Usually a lawyer creates a contract that the client signs and the client agree to pay a set fee for the attorneys’ services. Hourly fees vary greatly, even among criminal attorneys. Some of the most important factors that determine fees are geographic location, type of specific law practice, and experience. To keep track of his or her time, typically an attorney uses a sort of computer billing program to keep an ethical log of his or her hours. Then, the attorney adds these hours up and bills the client for his or her time spent working on a certain case.

Contingency Fees

Contingency fees refer to a type of fee in which an attorney receives a certain percentage of the proceeds won in a case. Typically only personal injury lawyers use contingency fees as the way they bill clients. A client only needs to pay a fee usually if he or she was successful in winning the legal case at hand.

Flat Fees

Flat fees are usually assigned for drunken driving cases. Typically the fee is about $1,500. This type of billing is dissuaded since attorneys can end up working on the case for only a very brief time or very long time.

In general, a criminal attorney charges their clients on hourly basis for his/her services. On complex cases, fees can easily build up if expert witnesses need to be used. Expert witnesses can add on extra dollars for a single case. Felony cases can cost anywhere from $25,000 to $50,000, while misdemeanor cases usually cost around $1,500 to $5,000. When seeking a criminal attorney, be sure to read all contracts very carefully so you know what you are paying for.

This article is not legal advice or factual figures. It is anticipated for informational and educational use.

Further Legal Reading: The Law Offices of Michael Lowe, Dallas Justice, are available to help you with your criminal defense case.