Hi everybody. It's Andy and welcome again to my office in Modesto, California. I'm
an attorney licensed to practice law in California as well as New York. In this
video I'm going to talk about contingency fee agreements in California
family law cases. So if you have never heard of a contingency fee agreement, you
don't know what it contains, you have, basically, no idea what I'm talking about,
I have a second video on my channel that goes over contingency fee agreements
broadly. What they have to contain, you know, the rules in California for them.
Um, yeah so basically a more general background than this particular video.
Again, in this particular video, I'm talking about contingency fee agreements
in California family law cases only. So I will give you a very common situation in
family law cases - so let's say that I file for divorce or, you know, my spouse has
filed for divorce and served me and I really want to do this divorce or, I
guess, if I've been served, I really want to fight this divorce to make sure I get
what I'm entitled to and so on. But the problem is is that I don't have any
money. Can I sign an agreement with a divorce lawyer that says, you know, I
don't have any money now, but I will pay you a percentage - twenty five percent,
fifty percent, whatever - of the property that I recover once the divorce is over
and that will be your payment. Can the lawyer in that situation sign such an
agreement in California. Uh, and the answer to that question actually
depends upon the kind of family law case you're talking about. So the legal
standard - I'm going to cite to two cases in a second - but the legal standard that
kind of roughly covers this is whether or not the lawyer's action in that
situation would "promote divorce" or "promote dissolution." And if the answer to
that question is yes - in other words the lawyer has to basically, you know, finish
the divorce, you know, work on the divorce, push the divorce forward in order to get
paid, then the answer to that question is no. In California there are two cases
which I'm going to write down below for you, but those two cases basically say
that in California if the lawyer's payment requires that they promote the
divorce, push the divorce through, work to make the divorce a reality, that is void
as a matter of public policy. So two cases on that: Number one is a case
called Newman that's actually pretty old. That's a case from 1900, actually, of all things.
So the Newman case from the year 1900. There's another case from 1931 that I'm
probably going to mispronounce, but it's called Thiesen. I'm gonna write it down
below for you guys. So but the basic idea is that if the lawyer's actions promote
divorce, if a lawyer has to, you know, make the divorce a reality in order to get
paid, the courts in California or California in general, I guess, does not
like that. That is void as a matter of public policy. So, yeah, I'm not sure if
that kind of makes sense to most people. Most people hear of contingency fee
divorce, er, contingency fee agreements rather and kind of think 'Oh well, yes, I
can use that in my divorce case, that would be great.' But by law in California,
if such a fee agreement requires the lawyer to make the divorce a reality, that
type of fee agreement is void as a matter of public policy. And it's the
Newman case as well as the Theisen case that kind of go over that. So
promoting divorce, however, if like if that's the legal standard, the eagle-eyed
among you probably would have guessed 'Okay well, what happens if the divorce is
already done?' Like, you know, let's say the divorce was done years ago, but there's a
problem with alimony or there's a problem with child support. Can I use a
contingency fee agreement to hire a lawyer to help me collect alimony, do
child visitation, child support, that kind of thing?
And the answer to that question actually, technically is yes. The Newman and the
Thiesen case don't cover, you know, that type of situation because the divorce is
done already. I'll give you my kind of take on it. In my career kind of in the
north-central kind of California sort of area, generally it's going to be pretty
hard, I think, to find a lawyer that will take any type of family law case on a
contingency basis. You could, there might be and if you are one of those family
law lawyers, you know, leave me a comment, get in touch, you know, kudos to you, I
guess. But in general, I think, every family lawyer that I've ever run across
is going to require an hourly, uh, payment. So contingent, contingency fee
agreements in those situations, at least in my experience, are not real common. You
know, your experience might, might differ. If you really need a contingency fee
lawyer in a child support situation or a spousal support situation and you can
find one great, but in my experience, they're pretty rare.
So hopefully that made sense. To kind of summarize then, contingency fee
agreements in California in divorce cases or family law cases, you can't have
them if they promote the divorce, like if the lawyer has to make the divorce a
reality in order to get paid. In general California doesn't do that. It's void,
but if the, like if the lawyer's percentage basically is, you know, not
determined by pushing through the divorce, by making the divorce a
reality, you can technically get a contingency fee agreement in those
situations. I personally have never met a family law lawyer in California who will
do that. So hopefully that all made sense. It
wasn't too confusing. Go ahead and watch this video again. Uh, yeah, and, you know,
hopefully, you know, you guys liked it. Leave me a comment, subscribe, like, share
all that stuff and I will talk to you guys next time.
Thanks.
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