Contingency Fee

Definition

An arrangement where your lawyer works for free unless you win, at which point they take a percentage so large you wonder if you actually won at all. It is the legal equivalent of splitting a pizza where your lawyer gets six of the eight slices.

Example Usage

"My lawyer took the case on a contingency fee basis, which sounded generous until I realized his cut was bigger than my medical bills."

Related Terms

Beginner

consideration

Something of value exchanged between parties to make a contract legally binding, because courts need proof you weren't just making empty promises. The legal system's way of ensuring everyone has skin in the game.

⚖️ Legal

Beginner

Litigation

The process of resolving disputes by spending more money on lawyers than the dispute was ever worth in the first place. The legal equivalent of burning down your house to kill a spider.

⚖️ Legal

Intermediate

equitable relief

A court remedy that doesn't involve money damages, such as injunctions, specific performance, or rescission. It's what you seek when throwing money at the problem won't fix it, and you need the court to actually make someone do (or stop doing) something.

⚖️ Legal

Beginner

justice

The theoretical ideal of fairness and moral rightness that the legal system strives for, with varying degrees of success depending on who you ask and how much money they have. It's simultaneously an abstract principle, a person's title (as in Justice Sotomayor), and what everyone claims to seek while pursuing completely opposite outcomes. Philosophy majors write theses about it; everyone else just knows it when they see it, except when they disagree.

⚖️ Legal

Beginner

Boilerplate

The 47 pages of fine print at the end of every contract that nobody reads but everyone pretends to. Written in a dialect of English that died in the 1800s and was resurrected by lawyers who charge by the word.

⚖️ Legal

Advanced

ultra vires

Actions beyond the legal authority or power of a corporation or public body, Latin for 'you can't do that.' The legal version of a kid trying to use their parent's credit card without permission.

⚖️ Legal

Translate This Term

See “Contingency Fee” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

Try the Translator

Share This Term

Post on X Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn

Discover a Term

Advanced

ghost bid

A fake bid in programmatic auctions designed to artificially inflate prices without intent to win. The ad tech equivalen...