I had a civil rights case that was very time consuming and difficult. I achieved a good result where the client is getting approximately $30,000. My fee award was in the $200,000 range. The court approved it. My question is, can I share some of my fee with the client?
Samuel C. Stretton.
The first consideration is why would the lawyer want to share the fees with the client since presumably the lawyer spent a great deal of time and effort and took a great risk on the case. The lawyer’s fees normally reflect the hours spent. This is not like some massive personal injury award where a lawyer gets a large percentage of the result, which is far beyond any number of hours the lawyer actually spent. This is an award based on the lawyer’s reasonable fee and based on the actual time and effort spent, presumably over months and months. In other words, the good feeling a lawyer has when he decided to help a client must also be evaluated by the hard and cold business analysis in terms of the need for that fee to pay off lines of credit, pay off past due debts and to actually be able to make a living.
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