What do you actually take home?
Enter the recovery, the fee percentage, and the case costs. The one contract term most people miss — whether costs come out before or after the fee — is a dial here, so you can see exactly what it's worth.
All free tools →A contingency agreement pays the attorney a percentage of the recovery. With costs-deducted-first, the fee is the percentage of what remains after case costs; with fee-taken-first, the fee is the percentage of the gross and costs then come out of your side. Same numbers, different order — on a $100,000 recovery with $10,000 in costs at one-third, the difference is about $3,300 of your money.
The tool reports the attorney and client payoffs separately — the same agency-cost split the Juricratic engine applies at full scale (client and counsel are different players with different payoffs), reduced to its consumer form.
Typical personal-injury fees run 33⅓% pre-suit and 40% after filing, but every term — the percentage, tiering, and deduction order — is negotiable and regulated differently by state bar rules. Read the retainer before signing it.
- How much does a lawyer take from a settlement?
- Commonly 33⅓% to 40% of the recovery under a contingency agreement, plus reimbursement of case costs. The exact percentage, whether it steps up after filing or trial, and whether costs come out before or after the fee are all set by your retainer agreement.
- What's the difference between fee-first and costs-first?
- Costs-first computes the attorney's percentage on the net after case costs; fee-first computes it on the gross recovery. Costs-first is the client-friendlier order — on the same numbers it always leaves the client at least as much.
- What counts as case costs?
- Filing fees, service, court reporters, deposition transcripts, expert witnesses, exhibits, and similar out-of-pocket expenses. In many agreements the firm advances them and recoups them from the recovery — this tool models that structure.
- Can the client end up with nothing?
- If costs approach or exceed the recovery, yes — the tool floors your share at zero and shows it. That scenario is exactly why the deduction-order term and a realistic damages estimate matter before you spend a year litigating.
- Is this legal advice?
- No. It is arithmetic applied to the numbers you enter, for education. Your actual split is governed by your retainer agreement and state bar rules.
This tool is a simulation artifact, not legal advice, and creates no attorney–client relationship. Every probability-like input is your assumption — a dial, not a prediction. Your inputs never leave your browser. Verify all deadlines and figures against the rules and orders of your court.
This is one dial. Your case has fifty.
Juricratic models your whole matter as a solvable game — every motion, every deadline, every settlement posture — and shows how the picture moves when the assumptions do.
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