Fees and costs
How much will this cost me? How will your legal fees be determined? Who pays the costs?
In an ideal world, you would not have to pay lawyers to recover what you are owed under the terms of your lease. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. You will need someone to act as your advocate to assert your legal right to recover past underpayment of royalties due to unreasonable or unwarranted deductions for post-production costs, and to define and protect your contractual right to get paid what you are owed going forward. Although the Pennsylvania Legislature, the Attorney General or both could play a role in addressing the problem, neither of them has taken the steps necessary to do so to date. Moreover, even if new HB 1391 overcomes the odds and is enacted into law in 2015, it would not help you recover the royalties that you have lost over the past several years. That leaves the legal system. While we wish we were in a position to work for free, we are not. We are, however, willing to represent you on a contingent and statutory fee basis, which will require no initial outlay of costs or fees by you, and under which we will advance the costs of litigation, and will not get reimbursed or paid any fees for our time unless and until we recover money for you. In other words, the risk of not prevailing is entirely on us.
There is no charge for our initial review of your lease and royalty statements, and if you decide to hire us, you will not be obligated to pay any legal fees or costs unless and until we recover money for you. We will be representing royalty interest owners in Marcellus royalty actions on a combination contingent/statutory fee basis, under which the amount of our fee will be based on the amount recover for you, and on any statutory fees that may be awarded by the court, with no contingent fee for any resulting future increase in your royalties (whether as a result of our litigation or HB 1391). The Law Firms will advance all costs, subject to reimbursement from your share of any recovery we obtain for you and other participants in the group action, if and only if we recover money on your behalf.
One of the benefits of group actions is that they allow costs to be shared and spread across all of the members of the group, which reduces the potential amount that any one member is required to bear. In addition, the statutory claims that we are filing allow for the potential award of costs as part of any recovery.
Our contingent fee is one-third (1/3) of any amounts we recover for you before the commencement of trial or arbitration, and 40% of any amounts we recover for you after the commencement of trial or arbitration. The contingent fee will cover the cost of representation not only through any trial or arbitration, but also in any post-trial motions or appeals. Our contingent fee will be based only on any amounts that we we recover for you in connection with underpayment of your past royalties; unlike Class Counsel in the Demchak Class Action, we are not seeking any contingent fee with respect to any increase in your future royalties that may occur as a result of any reduction in deductions of post-production costs from your royalties that we obtain for your benefit. The specific terms of our representation (including contingent fee percentages and other terms) will be detailed in a written contingent fee agreement, which you will have to sign and return before we undertake to represent you. You can review and download a copy of our Contingent Fee Agreement for Legal Services here. If you have any trouble downloading and printing the agreement, feel free to call us at our toll-free number, and we will be happy to send you one by regular mail or e-mail.
In an ideal world, you would not have to pay lawyers to recover what you are owed under the terms of your lease. Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. You will need someone to act as your advocate to assert your legal right to recover past underpayment of royalties due to unreasonable or unwarranted deductions for post-production costs, and to define and protect your contractual right to get paid what you are owed going forward. Although the Pennsylvania Legislature, the Attorney General or both could play a role in addressing the problem, neither of them has taken the steps necessary to do so to date. Moreover, even if new HB 1391 overcomes the odds and is enacted into law in 2015, it would not help you recover the royalties that you have lost over the past several years. That leaves the legal system. While we wish we were in a position to work for free, we are not. We are, however, willing to represent you on a contingent and statutory fee basis, which will require no initial outlay of costs or fees by you, and under which we will advance the costs of litigation, and will not get reimbursed or paid any fees for our time unless and until we recover money for you. In other words, the risk of not prevailing is entirely on us.
There is no charge for our initial review of your lease and royalty statements, and if you decide to hire us, you will not be obligated to pay any legal fees or costs unless and until we recover money for you. We will be representing royalty interest owners in Marcellus royalty actions on a combination contingent/statutory fee basis, under which the amount of our fee will be based on the amount recover for you, and on any statutory fees that may be awarded by the court, with no contingent fee for any resulting future increase in your royalties (whether as a result of our litigation or HB 1391). The Law Firms will advance all costs, subject to reimbursement from your share of any recovery we obtain for you and other participants in the group action, if and only if we recover money on your behalf.
One of the benefits of group actions is that they allow costs to be shared and spread across all of the members of the group, which reduces the potential amount that any one member is required to bear. In addition, the statutory claims that we are filing allow for the potential award of costs as part of any recovery.
Our contingent fee is one-third (1/3) of any amounts we recover for you before the commencement of trial or arbitration, and 40% of any amounts we recover for you after the commencement of trial or arbitration. The contingent fee will cover the cost of representation not only through any trial or arbitration, but also in any post-trial motions or appeals. Our contingent fee will be based only on any amounts that we we recover for you in connection with underpayment of your past royalties; unlike Class Counsel in the Demchak Class Action, we are not seeking any contingent fee with respect to any increase in your future royalties that may occur as a result of any reduction in deductions of post-production costs from your royalties that we obtain for your benefit. The specific terms of our representation (including contingent fee percentages and other terms) will be detailed in a written contingent fee agreement, which you will have to sign and return before we undertake to represent you. You can review and download a copy of our Contingent Fee Agreement for Legal Services here. If you have any trouble downloading and printing the agreement, feel free to call us at our toll-free number, and we will be happy to send you one by regular mail or e-mail.