Understanding Legal Fees

• Some legal fees will be unavoidable. These might include the cost of retaining an attorney to represent you and court fees. However, unnecessary legal fees might come from your attorney overcharging you if you did not get an agreement to have him represent you for a set fee.
  
  

Getting the Defendant's Side to Pay

• In cases where the defendant's actions caused the need for you to sue to recover damages, you may be able to ask the judge or court to also compel the defendant to reimburse you for your legal fees. You also may be able to recover unnecessary legal fees from the defendant's attorney if he litigated in a manner that tied you up in court as the result of an outrageous defense. That's because by tying you up in court longer than necessary, that lawyer directly cost you more money. In a breach of contract case, an ex-employer or his attorney might ludicrously argue that there was no breach of contract because the company representative who signed the contract is no longer employed there.
  
  

Getting Your Attorney to Pay

• Attorneys are notorious for charging usuriously high prices for their services, particularly when they bill per hour of work, since they often round up the time they spend working on your case, thus billing you for more of their time than was necessary. If you believe that your attorney has charged you unfairly for representing you, you may be able to sue her to recover the cost of unnecessary cost fees. However, unless you represent yourself, you'll need to hire another attorney to help you with your claim. If you do, make sure to ask the court to make the first attorney pay for the costs you incur on the second attorney.
  
  

Tips to Avoid Unnecessary Legal Fees

• When filing a breach of contract claim, you can avoid unnecessary legal fees by retaining an attorney to represent you who is willing to do so for a flat fee, rather than billing you hourly. Get an agreement to bill you for a flat fee in writing and review any terms or conditions included in the agreement carefully.