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How much does it cost to sue someone?
In this article, you’ll learn about:
And much more.
Let’s dig in.
You can expect a simple lawsuit to cost about $10,000 to sue someone.
If your lawsuit is more complex, it can easily cost much more to sue someone.
How much it costs to sue someone depends on the area of law you’re suing, like:
If you’re looking to sue someone, fill out the form on this page for a free consultation.
Suing someone for personal injury reasons is contingency fee work.
(i.e., car accidents, personal injury victims, medical malpractice, etc.)
This means that personal injury lawyers only get paid if they win your case.
They will cover the upfront necessary costs to sue someone for personal injury.
Once the personal injury case is won, the insurance companies will send the issue the money.
The money gets sent to the personal injury attorneys.
And they place that money into a dedicated trust to hold client money.
They will pull out money for legal fees like:
After they repay themselves for the legal services, you will get the remaining money left over.
Normally, a personal injury lawyer will take 25%-35% of the settlement.
With civil lawsuits, attorney’s fees are paid upfront.
Some examples of civil lawsuits are:
Most of these attorneys will charge by the hour.
You’ll have to pay a retainer fee, which is a “deposit” that covers:
The amount of money you’ll spend to sue someone depends on your case’s complexity.
The costs will add up quickly if it’s complex and takes a lot to gather evidence.
How much a lawsuit cost depends on how complex your case is.
Some things that affect how much it costs to sue someone are:
Let’s look at some factors that play into how much it costs to sue someone.
A process server costs, on average, $80 to serve someone.
But this depends on how tough it is to serve someone.
If they are hard to find, need multiple attempts, etc. then it will cost more.
Normally, a personal injury attorney will take 30%-35% of your settlement.
For example, if you win $100,000, then the attorney will take $30,000 to $35,000.
But you don’t have to come out of pocket for this.
Attorney’s fees range from $250-$450 per hour.
A lawyer’s hourly fees depend on:
Lawyer fees will make up a big chunk of how much it costs to sue someone.
Contingency fees are fees that the attorney is rewarded based on how much they win for you.
Contingency fees are not costs you pay when you sue someone.
They are fees the attorneys take out of the settlement from the insurance company.
Personal injury lawyers will take 30%-35% of your settlement when they win.
If they don’t win, then you don’t have to pay anything.
And they have to “eat the bill” for the court case.
For civil lawsuits, you have to pay for legal help up front.
Usually, the attorneys will estimate how simple or complex your case is.
And they will make you pay half of the cost to sue someone upfront.
Let’s say it’s going to cost $20,000 to sue someone.
Your retainer fees will be $10,000.
Both personal injury and civil lawsuits will have to pay for:
Most of the time, when you sue someone, you need to pay for expert witnesses.
If you’re suing someone over a car accident, then you’ll need to pay the witnesses.
They will have to:
There are other “expert witnesses” you need to pay, too.
Let’s say you have major personal injuries from a car accident.
The courts may ask a medical doctor to show up to the jury trial to testify.
These are the questions we get in our free consultations with clients.
(Besides how much does it cost to sue someone.)
How much you can sue someone for assault depends on:
Usually, how much you can sue someone for assault is tied to the degree of assault.
For a breach of contract, you can sue someone for $1,500 to $15,000 on average.
How much you can sue someone for breaching a contract depends on the “damages.”
Yes, you can sue someone for selling you a bad car.
But, you can only sue someone for selling you a bad car if:
Most likely, this will be a small claims case.
You can go file your complaint and take them to small claims court.
You can hire a law firm for this, but it might cost you more than you receive in the settlement.
Let’s say you sue someone and they have no money to pay you.
The courts may make them give you assets in value equal to your settlement amount.
Or they can force the defendant to sell these assets to pay you.
If they don’t have assets, the settlement payments will go to creditors.
And they will have to create a settlement payment plan to pay the creditors.
On average, it takes 1.5 years to sue someone.
And 90% of all litigation cases get resolved in 2.5 years.
When you sue someone, one of two things happens:
You, the defendant, and both lawyers will need to show up to the Superior Courts for trial.
Each state has different repossess to how long you have to sue someone.
Look up the Statute of Limitations in your state.
The normal length of time you have to sue someone is 1-6 years.
It depends on the area of law and the scenario you’re dealing with.
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