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The Economics of US-style Contingent Fees and UK-style Conditional Fees

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  • Winand Emons
  • Nuno Garoupa

Abstract

Under contingent fees the attorney gets a share of the judgement; under conditional fees the lawyer gets an upscale premium if the case is won which is, however, unrelated to the adjudicated amount. We compare conditional and contingent fees in a principal-agent framework where the lawyer chooses unobservable effort after she has observed the amount at stake. Contingent fees provide better incentives than conditional fees independently of whether upfront payments are restricted to be non-negative or not. Under contingent fees the attorney uses her information about what is at stake more efficiently

Suggested Citation

  • Winand Emons & Nuno Garoupa, 2004. "The Economics of US-style Contingent Fees and UK-style Conditional Fees," Diskussionsschriften dp0407, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    • Handle: RePEc:ube:dpvwib:dp0407
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Winand Emons, 2006. "Playing It Safe with Low Conditional Fees versus Being Insured by High Contingent Fees," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 8(1), pages 20-32.
    2. Chopard, Bertrand & Cortade, Thomas & Langlais, Eric, 2010. "Trial and settlement negotiations between asymmetrically skilled parties," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 18-27, March.
    3. Winand Emons, 2007. "Conditional versus contingent fees," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(1), pages 89-101, January.
    4. Deffains, Bruno & Langlais, Eric, 2007. "Informational externalities and informational sharing in class action suits," MPRA Paper 4846, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    contingent fees; conditional fees; moral hazard; incentives;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • K1 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law

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