[textbook]Traversing the Ethical Minefield Problems, Law, and Professional Responsibility by Susan R. Martyn (z-lib.org)(1) (1)

Chapter 12
Fees and Client Property
The materials in this chapter represent a very small sample of an enormous body of law that
governs the fees lawyers can contract for and collect from their clients. The cases
demonstrate that the reasonableness requirement in Model Rule 1.5 applies to every kind
of lawyer fee, which essentially becomes an implied term in every lawyer-client fee
agreement. 1 Lawyers who exceed this reasonableness limit cannot collect the fee for which
they bargained, and may be subject to professional discipline as well.
Legal Regulation of Lawyer Fees
Courts have no general ability to supervise lawyer fees, but in fact routinely review many
fees applying the factors in Model Rule 1.5(a). Some statutes and court rules explicitly
regulate legal fees. Others come to a court’s attention by virtue of a suit to recover a
promised or already paid fee. Many jurisdictions have established fee arbitration systems to
promote alternatives to formal lawsuits.
Although professional discipline is not usual in fee cases, Fordham, Powell, and Sather
in this chapter demonstrate that it does occur. Disputes over fees are not uncommon, and
occur for at least three reasons. First, some lawyers do a good job of explaining the basis of
the fee and keep more than adequate records of the time they have expended on the matter
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