Playing It Safe with Low Conditional Fees versus Being Insured by High Contingent Fees

Under contingent fees the attorney gets a share of the judgment;under conditional fees he gets an upscale premium if the caseis won, a premium unrelated, however, to the adjudicated amount.This article compares conditional and contingent fees in a frameworkwhere lawyers choose between a safe and a risky litigation strategy.Under conditional fees lawyers prefer the safe strategy; undercontingent fess, the risky one. Risk-averse plaintiffs preferconditional fees over contingent fees when lawyering costs arelow and vice-versa for high lawyering costs.