Paying Your Bankruptcy Lawyer: Attorney Fees

After determining "Should I file bankruptcy?", you will next choose your bankruptcy lawyer to help deal with your bankruptcy claims. Once you've chosen your bankruptcy lawyer, you'll want to establish the bankruptcy filing fees agreement right away. It is very important for both you and your bankruptcy attorney to have, on paper, an agreement outlining exactly how much his or her services are going to cost you, including account for bankruptcy petition fees and any other legal cost of bankruptcy. Getting this out of the way early on is important, so that you don't have any problems with miscommunication of retainer fees later on, and also to get a better idea of the cost to file bankruptcy.

Fixed Service Fees

This is the most common type of fee agreement for bankruptcy cases. You and your attorney agree on a fixed fee for providing the bankruptcy filing service. This way, there are no surprises when the bill comes. While the fee will vary between different lawyers, you can expect to pay somewhere between $1,000 and $2,500 for a good attorney.

Bankruptcy Lawyers Hourly Fees

Most attorneys will want to work on an hourly basis. This is usually fine, unless you will be requiring their time very often. If you think you'll be calling you attorney frequently, you may not realize that all those phone calls may add up to a lot of money you had not anticipated having to pay.

What about Retainer Fees?

Retainer fees are normally reserved for lawyers who will have ongoing work, such as corporate lawyers who work with a company several time a year. Bankruptcy lawyers are generally only used once (hopefully) so this type of fee arrangement doesn't make sense.

Work Out a Payment Plan

Your bankruptcy lawyer should be willing to help you with regards to his or her payment. It would be wise to ask about making a payment plan so that the service fee is not going to cause more financial trouble after the bankruptcy.