Attorney Fees & Costs of Suit
Our office offers two structures for the payment of attorney fees and costs of suit in a partition case. You may choose to pay an hourly attorney fee of $300 per hour plus costs or, if we accept your case "on contingency" (a percentage of your recovery), you will pay no attorney fees or costs unless we win your case, we will advance all of your costs of suit, and will take a percentage of your net recovery.
Contingency Fee Agreement:
Kinsey Law Offices takes a limited number of real property partition cases in a contingency fee basis. Our contingency fee agreement for partition cases provides that we will advance all costs of the litigation and will take only a percentage of your “net recovery”. If there is no recovery, the client pays nothing.
The fees to be paid Attorney will be a percentage of the "net recovery," depending on the stage at which settlement or judgment is reached. The term "net recovery" means (a) the total amounts received by settlement, arbitration award or judgment, including any award of attorney fees (b) minus all costs and disbursements advanced by Attorney. "Net recovery" also includes the reasonable net value of any nonmonetary recovery including, but not limited to the value of any real property obtained by Attorney for Client by way of resolution of disputes concerning the Property, the resolution of the Lawsuits, and/or the resolution of any other lawsuits filed by Attorney on behalf of Client.
Attorney fees are calculated as follows:
​
-
(a) If a Claim or Lawsuit is resolved before filing of an arbitration, lawsuit or other formal proceeding, the fee shall be twenty-five percent (25%) of the net recovery.
-
(b) If a Claim or Lawsuit is resolved after the initiation of an arbitration, lawsuit, or other formal proceedings, the fee shall be thirty-three and one/third (33.33%) of the net recovery.
​
-
(c) If the matter is resolved on or before sixty (60) days before the date initially set for the trial of a Lawsuit or arbitration hearing, the fee shall be forty percent (40%) of the net recovery.
​
-
(d) If the matter is resolved after trial of a Lawsuit or arbitration of a Claim, the fee shall be fifty percent (50%) of the net recover
Hourly Fee Agreement
Our hourly fee agreement provides for the payment of $300 per hour for each hour spent by an attorney working on your case with an advance minimum payment based on the complexity of the case. The client must also make a deposit into an attorney/client trust account to cover costs of suit based on the expenses likely to be incurred in your particular case.
​
The total amount of attorney fees and costs you will spend on your case depends on the total amount of time the attorney has to spend working on your case to bring it to a successful conclusion. Your case may settle early in the 30-day period your opponents have to respond to your complaint or it might turn into a nightmare which takes a year or more. It all depends on your opposition. We can guess at whether your opposition will be strong, weak, or non-existent (a default) but some guesses are accurate and some are not - a lesson learned long ago in a career which began in 1976.
​
Generally your $5,000 will cover a case in which a complaint is filed and the matter is settled with a written agreement within a couple of months or a contested case where there is some minimal need to deal with motions or preliminary discovery. However, if you case doesn't settle early and discovery is resisted and drags on, be prepared to spend at least another $5,000. If your case goes to trial (partition cases rarely do), be prepared to spend another $10,000 or $20,000.
​
These are only general estimates. Your case may cost more or it may cost less.
