What is a consumer advocate?
A consumer advocate is a person whose job is to protect and promote the welfare and rights of consumers, for example by giving advice, testing products or trying to improve laws relating to the sale of goods.
There are national consumer advocacy organizations, such as Consumers Union, Families USA, Community Catalyst and state-based organizations, such as Health Access California, Health Care for All Massachusetts and the Kentucky Equal Justice Center.
What do most attorneys charge per hour?
Law firm financial management is a common source of confusion among lawyers. You need to understand cash flow, trust account management, and profitability while simultaneously managing cases. Before tackling these tasks, you must also answer one fundamental question: how should you structure your attorney fees?
While you can use various fee arrangements in your law firm, an hourly rate should serve as the baseline of most fee structures. Say you intend to charge flat fees only. You can’t define your flat fee schedule without first knowing your hourly rate and the number of hours required to handle different case types. The same is true for retainer-based fees, which are deposits on future hourly work.
Therefore, for most practices, setting an appropriate hourly rate for your legal services should be a top priority for your law firm and helps answer the question, “how much is a lawyer?” when clients inevitably ask.
This guide will go over the average hourly rates and retainer fees for U.S.-based lawyers, common fee arrangements, key factors for determining rates, and additional tips to improve your law firm’s billing system.
State | Average Hourly Rate |
Alabama | $200 |
Alaska | $250 |
Arizona | $225 |
Arkansas | $190 |
California | $275 |
– | – |
If you’re wondering how much to charge per hour, these average attorney rates offer a few different observations:
- Keep these data points in mind as you set your law firm’s pricing and hourly rates.
- For example, you may have a harder time commanding a New York rate if you live in Vermont.
The average lawyer retainer fee ranged from $1,973 to $4,015 in 2023, according to our 2024 Benchmark Report Part 1: Law Firm Finances. We break down these averages by practice area below:
Case complexity and executed services can vary between practice areas. We recommend using these averages as a starting point when considering your retainer fees.
According to the American Bar Association (ABA), hourly billing is the most commonly used fee arrangement. However, your law firm can leverage several other attorney fee agreements.
- Hourly billing ties your income directly to the time spent on a case. If you can manage the process of hourly billing, this system can help your law firm accurately bill for their work.
- Retainer fees rely on hourly bill rates, but the client pays upfront. The retainer is a deposit the client pays on future services.
- Contingency fees are set as a percentage of the amount awarded in a case. This structure is only appropriate for cases you can win. If your client receives no award or settlement, you won’t get paid.
In contingency relationships, you might consider requiring the client to pay certain expenses regardless of the outcome. You’d outline those expenses in the fee agreements. You could also implement a sliding scale, with a fee percentage that varies based on how far the case went before settling.
Lawyers should charge all case-related costs to th