Amarillo businesses may want to rethink how they pay their lawyers in certain cases.
Some of the America’s top firms are embracing the concept of hiring clients on a contingent fee or flat fee. This allows businesses to share risk with their lawyers when pursuing what if often extremely expensive litigation and in which there are no guarantees of recovery.
According to a March 7, 2006 Wall Street Journal article, there is a growing number of cases in which the contingent fee was used. For example, Research in Motion, which makes the popular Blackberry phone, hired Wiley Rain, LLP in Washington to represent them in a multi-million dollar patent infringement case. Similarly, Bran Cave LLP in St. Louis won a $75 million dollar verdict in a case on behalf of Biomedical Systems Corp. of St. Louis.
Although paying lawyers by the hour is the traditional approach, and one that is well-suited to many types of case (particularly where a company is defending, rather than prosecuting a lawsuit), the contingent fee arrangement can be a boon to both lawyer in client under the right circumstances.
