{"id":4442,"date":"2003-07-16T14:27:54","date_gmt":"2003-07-16T18:27:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2003\/07\/16\/a-bar-president-writes-about-"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:50","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:50","slug":"a-bar-president-writes-about-contingency-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/07\/16\/a-bar-president-writes-about-contingency-fees\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bar President Writes About Contingency Fees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#000000\"><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\"><strong><em>I<\/em><\/strong>&#8216;ve wanted to quote publically from an article by <strong>Rutledge R. Liles<\/strong> for a long time, and it just occurred to me that I have a weblog that will let me do just that.  Liles was president of the Florida Bar when he wrote the artcle entitled <strong><em>Professionalism and the Contingent Fee: When is Enough Enough?<\/em><\/strong><\/font><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\">, for The Florda Bar Journal (Jan. 1989, at 5). [Given its vintage, the article is not available online, but can be ordered through the Journal archives on the Bar <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flabar.org\/\"><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\">site<\/font><\/a><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\">, or by email to gbusch -at- flabar.org .]<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#000000\"> <\/font><font color=\"#000000\"><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\">After a successful fight against an early tort reform proposal called Amendment 10, Liles wanted to discuss a topic that came up often when he spoke against Amendment 10 &#8212; &#8220;The contingent fee and perceived abuses.&#8221; Here are some excerpts [bold emphases added]:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font color=\"#000000\">\u201cJudging from the many comments I received during the past several months, the contingent fee, or perhaps more accurately, the size of the percentage of fee that it often generates, <strong>causes considerable hostility among the public<\/strong>. They constantly hear and read of lawyers retaining 40 percent or 45 percent of a damage award as a fee which, after adding costs, results in less than half of the award findings its way to the client. This distribution <strong>creates the impression of greed<\/strong>.\u201d<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font color=\"#000000\">\u201cOnce explained, I seriously doubt that anyone would dispute the philosophy behind the contingent fee. <strong>It is the application of the concept on a case-by-case basis that causes the perceived \u2014 and sometimes real \u2014 problem<\/strong>. And it is in the context of professionalism and of monitoring legitimate criticism that we must reexamine the applied philosophy of the contingent fee.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font color=\"#000000\">Drawing upon personal experience, I recall a time when <strong>one-third and even less was the \u2019standard\u2019 fee<\/strong>. Over the years, it began to move upward into the 40 percent range with some lawyers charging even more. . . . <strong>What has caused this evolution from a fractional percentage of the recovery to one approaching an equal partnership [with the client]?<\/strong>\u201d<br \/>\n<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font color=\"#000000\">Experienced trial lawyers will tell you that <strong>while there may be cases that ultimately justify a 40 percent contingent fee<\/strong> \u2014 complex products liability and medical malpractice \u2014 <strong>there remain many, many cases that clearly do not<\/strong>.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font color=\"#000000\">While it is easy to defend the philosophy of the contingent fee, it is impossible to defend its abuses.<strong> <\/strong>We must as professionals address these abuses and <strong>the process must start in our own individual practices<\/strong>. The contingent fee <strong>should be reasonable under the circumstances of the given case<\/strong>. The contracted fee should be a guide not a mandate.\u201d<br \/>\n<\/font><\/li>\n<li><font color=\"#000000\">It has been accurately said, in justification of the contingent fee, that it is the \u201c<strong>poor man\u2019s key to the courthouse<\/strong>.\u201d Professionalism, however, demands that we be ever mindful that <strong>keys are made of brass \u2014 not solid gold<\/strong>.\u201d<\/font><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\">Are there any other bar leaders willing to be as honest as Rutledge Liles?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Geneva,Arial,Sans-Serif\"><strong><font face=\"Arial\"> <\/font><\/strong><strong><font face=\"Arial\"><font size=\"2\">P.S. <\/font><\/font><\/strong><font face=\"Arial\"><font size=\"2\">It is probably no coincidence that Liles&#8217; state, Florida, is the only state in the nation with a <\/font><\/font><strong><u><font color=\"#7f007f\" face=\"Arial\"><font size=\"2\">Statement of Client&#8217;s Rights for Continency Fees<\/font><\/font><\/u><\/strong><font color=\"#7f007f\" face=\"Arial\"><font face=\"Arial\"><font size=\"2\">. Among other information, clients in Florida must be told that there is no set percentage for a contingency fee and they are free to negotiate the fee level with their lawyer. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font face=\"Arial\" size=\"2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/ethicalesq\/tinycheck.gif\" alt=\"tiny check\" height=\"12\" width=\"15\" \/><\/font><font color=\"#7f007f\" face=\"Arial\"><font face=\"Arial\"> See our version of <span><a href=\"http:\/\/media-cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/gems\/ethicalesq\/BillofRightsforContingencyFe.doc\"><em><strong><font color=\"#42aac8\">The Injured Consumers\u2019 Bill of Rights for Contingency Fees<\/font><\/strong><\/em><\/a>, which is based on the requirements set forth in ABA Ethics Op. 94-389 and in the Florida Bar&#8217;s fee rules.<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#7f007f\" face=\"Arial\"><\/font> <\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8216;ve wanted to quote publically from an article by Rutledge R. Liles for a long time, and it just occurred to me that I have a weblog that will let me do just that. Liles was president of the Florida Bar when he wrote the artcle entitled Professionalism and the Contingent Fee: When is Enough [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-19E","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14236,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4442\/revisions\/14236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}