A sliding-scale contingency fee sets different fee percentages depending on when and how a case resolves, most commonly a lower percentage for a pre-suit or early settlement and progressively higher percentages if the case proceeds through filing, discovery, trial, or appeal. The structure reflects that the attorney's time investment and risk both increase the further a case advances, so the fee scales with the additional work and risk assumed.

This structure aligns incentives differently than a flat contingency percentage: it can reduce the attorney's incentive to push a case unnecessarily toward trial purely to capture a higher fee tier, while some critics argue the reverse, that a rising fee schedule can create pressure to litigate past the point that is in the client's best interest. Fee agreements including a sliding scale are subject to the same reasonableness and disclosure requirements as any contingency arrangement.

Juricratic models a sliding-scale fee as a stage-dependent cost function layered onto the same decision tree used for the rest of the case, so the net-to-client recovery at each potential resolution point already reflects the correct fee tier for that stage, letting a client see how the effective net recovery, not just the gross verdict or settlement, changes depending on when the case actually resolves.

Plaintiffs' firms use sliding-scale contingency agreements to align fee compensation with the increasing time and risk of litigating further, disclosing the specific percentage breakpoints to the client at intake, while clients and their advisors model the net recovery at each potential resolution stage before agreeing to the fee structure.