Attorney-Client Agreement

SUMMARY

The attorney-client agreement is the formal agreement between the attorney and the client. A summary of my attorney-client agreement is:

(1) who is the attorney and who is the client;

(2) what the attorney promises to do for the client and what the client promises to do for the attorney;

(3) what the other terms of the agreement are, primarily that the client promises to answer questions asked by the other side in writing, attend all necessary hearings and other appointments and tell the truth;

(4) details of the payments of fees - usually either hourly, contingency or flat

hourly, meaning the attorney bills the client a certain amount of money per hour, the hourly rate, multiplied by the hours or fraction of hours spent;

contingency meaning the attorney gets paid a percentage of the money recovered, ; or

a flat fee, meaning all the services are paid for one amount of money,

and other details, like the fact that the client can terminate the attorney at any time, but, if the client terminates the attorney when the client owes the attorney money, the attorney can get the value of the time spent against any recovery on the case, and that represents a conflict between the attorney and the client;

(5) other terms such as the rules of how the contract is formed and interpreted.

Lastly, the signature and date page, called the execution page.

DETAILS

Contingency, versus hourly, versus flat

Many clients want the attorney to take a percentage of what the attorney recovers from the opposition. Certain types of cases are typically contingency cases. Examples of contingency cases are: (1) personal injury cases, including car accidents; (2) cases where a tenant sues a landlord, because the landlord has failed to make repairs (called habitability cases); and (3) wrongful termination and other employment cases, that my law firm does not handle.

Attorneys are seeking very specific things with contingency cases, as follows

Third party evidence that the opposing party is liable. For example, in a car collision case if the opposing party’s insurance company has wriitten a letter stating that the insurance accepts liability for their insured,

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