It depends. Many cases settle quickly for under ten thousand dollars in fees. Other cases that proceed to trial cost more money. For example, a trial could reasonably take 50 hours of work, and at approximately $500 per hour, that is $25,000. Trials usually take a day or longer, and there is significant work before to prepare and complete all the steps to get to trial. More complex matters will cost more. Be prepared to spend tens of thousands in any event on a lawsuit. A lawsuit is not an insignificant thing. A lawyer will be focused on it and essentially working exclusively on it for weeks at a time.
Nevertheless, at the free consultation, the lawyer will provide an estimate for you for your specific matter and again at each step of the way so you know how much your case will cost.
In contingency matters, the fee is easy to estimate - it is around 30% (never more than 33%) of the money that the lawyer was able to secure for the client. For example, if a lawyer secures $100,000 in extra money for the client, the lawyer would get about $30,0000.
