1. In India, the amount charged by a lawyer is unchecked. Different professionals charge different amounts depending upon the case, client status and their paying status, which leads to extreme fee variation. However, the growing numbers of lawyers demanding astronomical fees from their clients is a major concern. This mostly affects the poor and backward societies, as high consultancy fees exempt them to get legal consultancy from the top lawyers of our country.
2. The advocate's fee rules don’t put any limit to the money claimed. The Supreme Court Rules 2013 allows a lawyer to charge a maximum of rupees 8000 per hearing, which is hardly a tiny part of the amount that is billed.
3. We see that the best lawyers of our country charge as high as Rupees 15-20 lakhs for a mere appearance in the court. Some lawyers can charge anything between rupees 3-6 lakhs for high court cases only. And if the lawyer has to travel to the high court, then he can even increase the charges to as high as 15-20 lakhs rupees. For the cases in the trial court, most lawyers usually charge the client for the entire case, which can go as high as 10 lakhs rupees. Now all these prices can differ depending upon the lawyer and the case.
4. There are a few factors that determine how much lawyers charge.
5. The first important factor is the lawyer's experience level. The number of years someone had practiced law directly correlates with the amount they charge. Legal practice is a profession that gets better with experience, and that's why you can see most experience lawyers charging a huge amount for their expertise and knowledge.
6. Another factor is the prestige of their law firm. As you would have guessed, lawyers from bigger and prestigious law firms do charge a higher amount as compared to others. This is one of the most important factors many people take into accounting while hiring a lawyer.
7. The next important factor is where they perform their legal services. A lawyer's cost will vary in different parts of the country. Lawyers in rural areas may have a smaller amount of client and competition and relatively less completion and would charge much less than a big city lawyer.
8. The next factor that comes into play is their area of specialization. There are certain types of legal work that are far more expensive than others as they take more time and effort. So the type of legal aid you need direct links to the charges of a lawyer. It would also depend on whether the lawyer charges you hourly, flat-fee or contingency-based.
9. The top lawyers of our country have commercialized the profession of legal consultancy. Even the consultancy charges of some lawyers can go as high as 30,000 rupees per hour. Some lawyers charge relatively less but they don’t have the experience or the knowledge of a top lawyer. In some ways, this violates the right to equal justice for the poor who cannot afford the astronomical fees charged by the top lawyers.
This article is written for educational purposes, this is not for any kind of advertisement of the writer.