Attorney's fee is a chiefly United States term for compensation for legal services performed by an attorney (lawyer or law firm) for a client, in or out of court.
Fees may be an hourly, flat-rate or contingent fee. Recent studies suggest that when lawyers charge a flat-fee rather than billing by the hour, they work less hard on behalf of clients and clients get worse outcomes.
Attorney fees are separate from fines, compensatory and punitive damages, and (except in Nevada) from court costs in a legal case. Under the "American rule", attorney fees are usually not paid by the losing party to the winning party in a case, except pursuant to specific statutory or contractual rights.
Overview The phrase is a legal term of art in American jurisprudence (in which lawyers are collectively referred to as "attorneys", a wording practice not found in most other legal systems). Attorney's fees (or attorneys' fees, depending upon number of attorneys involved, or simplified to attorney fees) are the fees, including labor charges and costs, charged by lawyers or their firms for legal services provided by them to their clients. They do not include incidental and non-legal costs (e.g., expedited shipping costs for legal documents). Generally (Nevada being an exception), attorney fees are tabulated separately from court costs, and are also separate from fines, compensatory and punitive damages, and other monies in a legal case not enumerated as court costs.
The analogous concept has differing names and applicability in common law systems such as in most of the Commonwealth of Nations, and in civil law systems such as those of most of Europe and many former European colonies. For example, in a court case under English law, the fees of solicitors and barristers (two types of lawyer) are combined with court costs and various other expenses into a combined "costs", while non-court solicitor expenses may be separately billed as per-hour charges, and those of barristers as daily brief fees. The losing party in a case in most common law systems pays for the costs (including fees) of both parties.
State laws or bar association regulations, many of which are based on Rule 1.5 of the American Bar Association's Rules of Professional Conduct, govern the terms under which lawyers can accept fees.Cornell Law School web site, ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct (2004), Rule 1.5: Fees Many complaints to ethics boards regarding attorneys revolve around excessive attorney's fees.Gabriel Chin & Scott Wells, Can a Reasonable Doubt have an Unreasonable Price? Limitations on Attorney's Fees in Criminal Cases, 41 Boston College Law Review 1 (1999)
In some American jurisdictions, a lawyer for the plaintiff in a civil case 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. In practice, historically tort cases involving personal injury often involve contingent fees, with attorneys being paid a portion of the pain and suffering damages; one commentator says a typical split of pain and suffering is one-third for the lawyer, one-third for the physician, and one-third for the plaintiff.O'Connell. (1981). "A Proposal to Abolish Defendants' payment for Pain and Suffering in Return for Payment of Claimants' attorneys' fees" . University of Illinois Law Review.
The contingent fee has been described as the ‘poor man’s key to the courthouse".American Bar Association; “Providing Keys to the Courthouse Without Giving Up Full Recovery” by Nicole Liguori Micklich, in Construct!, Volume 2, No. 15, Winter 2006 Whereas, corporations or wealthy individuals can afford to hire attorneys to pursue their legal interests, the contingency fee affords any injury victim the opportunity, regardless of ability to pay, to hire the best attorney in his or her field. Most jurisdictions in the United States prohibit working for a contingent fee in family law or criminal cases.
In the United States, an up-front 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. This is to be differentiated between a retainer in Commonwealth states, where a retainer is the contract that is initially signed by a client to engage a lawyer. Money may or may not be paid upfront, but the lawyer is still "retained".
Amount of fees Attorney fees are negotiated between the attorney and client, subject to any limits imposed by state law and the general principle that an attorney fee must be reasonable. Although fee agreements in most cases can be oral agreements, it is good practice for lawyers to enter formal written fee agreements with their clients, and to clearly describe how fees are calculated.
In 2006, median salaries of new graduates ranged from US$50,000 per year in small firms (two to ten attorneys) to US$160,000 per year in very large firms (more than 501 attorneys). The distribution of these salaries was highly bimodal, with the majority of new lawyers earning at either the high end or the low end of the scale, and a median salary of US$62,000."What Do New Lawyers Earn? A 15-Year Retrospective as Reported by Law School Graduates". . The Association for Legal Career Professionals, In the summer of 2016, New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore raised its first-year associate salary to $180,000. Many other high-end New York-based and large national law firms soon followed. Two years later, in the summer of 2018, New York law firm Milbank raised its first-year associate salary to $190,000, with other major firms following shortly thereafter. In 2022 Milbank increased first-year compensation to $215,000, with most comparable firms following suit.
Hourly rates The range of fees charged by lawyers varies widely from one city to the next. Most large law firms in the United States bill between $200 and $1,000 per hour for their lawyers' time, although the fees charged by smaller firms are much lower. The rate varies by location as well as the specific area of law practiced. Typically insurance defense firms have lower hourly rates than non-insurance firms, but are compensated by having steady, regular paying work provided. Regional urban centers such as Salt Lake City will average $150 per hour for an associate's time on a basic case, but that fee will increase for larger firms. Within large firms in the United States, billable hours are considered a measure of productivity with a minimum of about 1,800 required or expected of associates.
In the United States, lawyers typically earn between $100,000 and $220,000 per year, although earnings vary by age and experience, practice setting, sex, and race.United States Census Bureau, American Community SurveyUnited States Census Bureau, Current Population SurveyUnited States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment StatisticsAfter the JD IIMichael Simkovic, Why the New York Times Should Correct Remaining Factual Errors in Its Law School Coverage, Brian Leiter's Law School Reports Solo practitioners typically earn less than lawyers in corporate law firms but more than those working for state or local government. Solo practitioners make an average of $65,000.
Many surveys of hourly rates are done. The American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) commissions a survey of its members every two years and it publishes these in what it calls a "Report of the Economic Survey". The latest one is dated June 2007. Rates are collected for 14 geographic areas and by associate or partner.See http://www.aipla.org for more information, although the Surveys are not made available online, but must be purchased. Many courts have followed the rates shown by these AIPLA surveys and they are highly regarded for intellectual property litigation.
In BigLaw firms, hourly rates vary greatly depending on the lawyer, whether they are a partner or an associate, with other factors taken into consideration. As of 2024, the highest lawyers have a rate of $2,100 to $2,620 per hour, with other partners charging $1,285 to $1,860. Many lawyers in these firms charge in the $800-900 range as well. Researchers created a top 32 list of firms that charge the most, the former figures being most prominent in these firms. As of early 2026, BigLaw lawyer fees have been surging, with one top US firm charging $4,000 per hour for its top partners. Median salaries for associates range from $200,000 to $330,000. This range varies based on years worked as an associate, calculated up to the eighth year: first-year associates make a median of $200,000, while eighth-year associates make a median of $330,000.
The State Bar of Oregon and the Colorado State Bar have published surveys of rates for various areas of their states which are available online.
Perhaps the most widely followed set of rates are what is called the Laffey Matrix available from the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. These have been available since 1982 and are updated annually. Hourly rates are shown by years of experience. For June 1, 2006, to May 31, 2007, the rates are as follows: 20+ years of experience, $425 per hour; 11–19 years, $375; 8–10 years, $305; 4–7 years, $245; 1–3 years, $205; and paralegals and law clerks, $120. The Laffey Matrix appears to be growing in acceptance by many courts throughout the United States, but the matrix must be adjusted to account for higher or lower costs for legal services in other areas.
Hourly rates are increasing almost every year and some lawyers charge substantially higher than the rates shown by the Laffey Matrix. The first American attorney to regularly charge a four-digit hourly fee ($1,000 and higher) was Benjamin Civiletti in late 2005.Andy Soltis, "Lawyer Rai$es the Bar – First-ever 1G/hr. Fee," New York Post, 13 December 2005, 23.
Contingent fees
A contingent fee, or contingency fee, is an attorney fee that is made contingent on the outcome of a case. A typical contingent fee in a tort case is normally one third to forty percent of the recovery, but the attorney does not recover a fee unless money is recovered for the client. States prohibit contingent fees in certain types of cases. For example, most states forbid contingent fees in criminal cases. States typically require that a fee agreement that involves a contingent fee be reduced to writing and signed by the client.
Other fee arrangements With the ongoing recession of the 2000s, corporate clients began driving attorneys increasingly toward alternative fee arrangements (AFAs), which can include flat fees (per matter), fixed fees (for a "book" of matters), success bonuses, and other options. Recent studies suggest that when lawyers charge a fixed-fee rather than billing by the hour, they work less hard on behalf of clients and client get worse outcomes.
Regulation of attorney fees In some types of cases, such as workers' compensation cases, attorney fees may be limited by statute, or subject to judicial review. Contingency fees in personal injury and medical malpractice cases are often capped by state law. In other cases, attorney fees may be subject to review for reasonableness. For example, in class action cases the court in which the case is resolved will review the attorney fees of class counsel for reasonableness.