IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/irlaec/v22y2002i2p217-225.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A note on settlements under the contingent fee method of compensating lawyers

Author

Listed:
  • Polinsky, A. Mitchell
  • Rubinfeld, Daniel L.

Abstract

It is commonly thought that a lawyer working under a contingent fee arrangement has an excessive motive — relative to his client’s interest — to settle the case, leading to a lower-than-desirable settlement amount and a high settlement rate. The conventional analysis that generates this conclusion omits an important consideration — that if the case were to go to trial, the lawyer would spend an inadequate amount of time on it. We demonstrate that once this effect is taken into account, the lawyer could have an insufficient motive to settle, the opposite of what is usually believed. Specifically, the lawyer’s settlement demand could be too high and the resulting settlement rate too low.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Polinsky, A. Mitchell & Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 2002. "A note on settlements under the contingent fee method of compensating lawyers," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 217-225, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:22:y:2002:i:2:p:217-225
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144-8188(02)00088-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gravelle, Hugh & Waterson, Michael, 1993. "No Win, No Fee: Some Economics of Contingent Legal Fees," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(420), pages 1205-1220, September.
    2. Rickman, Neil, 1999. "Contingent fees and litigation settlement1," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 295-317, September.
    3. Miceli, Thomas J, 1994. "Do Contingent Fees Promote Excessive Litigation?," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(1), pages 211-224, January.
    4. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 2003. "Aligning the Interests of Lawyers and Clients," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 165-188.
    5. Thomason, Terry, 1991. "Are Attorneys Paid What They're Worth? Contingent Fees and the Settlement Process," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 187-223, January.
    6. Lucian Arye Bebchuk, 1984. "Litigation and Settlement under Imperfect Information," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(3), pages 404-415, Autumn.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Winand Emons & Nuno Garoupa, 2004. "The Economics of US-style Contingent Fees and UK-style Conditional Fees," Diskussionsschriften dp0407, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    2. Baumann, Florian & Friehe, Tim, 2014. "On discovery, restricting lawyers, and the settlement rate," DICE Discussion Papers 155, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    3. Michael McKee & Rudy Santore & Joel Shelton, 2007. "Contingent Fees, Moral Hazard, and Attorney Rents: A Laboratory Experiment," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 253-273, June.
    4. Bradley Graham & Jack Robles, 2014. "Moral hazard and legal services contracts," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 61(3), pages 219-230, September.
    5. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 2003. "Aligning the Interests of Lawyers and Clients," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 165-188.
    6. Finkle Aaron & Shin Dongsoo, 2010. "Disregarding the Attorney's Advice: An Agency Perspective," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 197-217, September.
    7. Alberto Casagrande & Marco Spallone, 2007. "Investigating the determinants of pretrial settlement rates: contingent versus non-contingent lawyers’ fees," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1-13, August.
    8. Friehe, Tim & Gabuthy, Yannick & Lambert, Eve-Angéline, 2020. "Settlement implications of lawyer advertising," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    9. Nuno Garoupa & Fernando Gómez, 2002. "Cashing by the hour: Why large law firms prefer hourly fees over contingent fees," Economics Working Papers 639, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    10. Yang, Erya, 2020. "Optimism and pessimism in bargaining and contests," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    11. Amy Fanner & Paul Pecorino, 2005. "Dispute Rates and Contingency Fees: An Analysis from the Signaling Model," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(3), pages 566-581, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Emons, Winand & Garoupa, Nuno, 2004. "The Economics of US-Style Contingent Fees and UK-Style Conditional Fees," CEPR Discussion Papers 4473, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Amy Fanner & Paul Pecorino, 2005. "Dispute Rates and Contingency Fees: An Analysis from the Signaling Model," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 71(3), pages 566-581, January.
    3. Nuno Garoupa & Fernando Gómez, 2002. "Cashing by the hour: Why large law firms prefer hourly fees over contingent fees," Economics Working Papers 639, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    4. Kyung Hwan Baik & In‐Gyu Kim, 2007. "Strategic Decisions On Lawyers’ Compensation In Civil Disputes," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(4), pages 854-863, October.
    5. Baik, Kyung Hwan & Kim, In-Gyu, 2007. "Contingent fees versus legal expenses insurance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 351-361, September.
    6. Roland Kirstein & Neil Rickman, 2004. ""Third Party Contingency" Contracts in Settlement and Litigation," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 160(4), pages 555-575, December.
    7. Zhou, J., 2010. "Access to justice : An economic approach," Other publications TiSEM 9d70f451-35c4-4878-92bf-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Baumann, Florian & Friehe, Tim, 2014. "On discovery, restricting lawyers, and the settlement rate," DICE Discussion Papers 155, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    9. Frank H. Stephen, 2013. "Lawyers, Markets and Regulation," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14803.
    10. Hyde, Charles E., 2006. "Conditional versus contingent fees: Litigation expenditure incentives," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 180-194, June.
    11. A. Mitchell Polinsky & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 2003. "Aligning the Interests of Lawyers and Clients," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 165-188.
    12. Winand Emons, 2007. "Conditional versus contingent fees," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(1), pages 89-101, January.
    13. Friehe, Tim & Gabuthy, Yannick & Lambert, Eve-Angéline, 2020. "Settlement implications of lawyer advertising," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    14. Heyes, Anthony & Rickman, Neil & Tzavara, Dionisia, 2004. "Legal expenses insurance, risk aversion and litigation," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 107-119, March.
    15. Peter Van Wijck & Ben Van Velthoven, 2000. "An Economic Analysis of the American and the Continental Rule for Allocating Legal Costs," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 115-125, March.
    16. Farmer Amy & Pecorino Paul, 2016. "Litigation with a Variable Cost of Trial," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 203-226, July.
    17. Landeo, Claudia M. & Nikitin, Maxim, 2018. "Financially-constrained lawyers: An economic theory of legal disputes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 625-647.
    18. Anne Duchêne, 2017. "Patent Litigation Insurance," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 84(2), pages 631-660, June.
    19. Yang Xi & Qiao Yue, 2019. "Judicial Reform in China: From the Perspective of Legal Fee Arrangements," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-10, December.
    20. Eyal Zamir & Ilana Ritov, 2010. "Revisiting the Debate over Attorneys' Contingent Fees: A Behavioral Analysis," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(1), pages 245-288, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:22:y:2002:i:2:p:217-225. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/irle .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.