forthcoming in Oxford Economics Papers Conditional versus contingent Fees

Under contingent fees the attorney gets a share of the judgement; un-der conditional fees the lawyer gets an upscale premium if the case is won which is, however, unrelated to the adjudicated amount. We com-pare conditional and contingent fees in a framework where lawyers are uninformed about the clients ’ cases. If there is asymmetric informa-tion about the expected level of adjudication, in equilibrium attorneys will offer only conditional fees. If there is asymmetric information about the risk of cases, only contingent fee contracts are offered in equilibrium. JEL Classification: D82, K1. 1