When you hire an attorney in Illinois, you will pay them in one of three ways:

• Flat fee – Typically traffic or misdemeanor criminal cases
• Hourly – Divorces, most civil law suits, commercial litigation
• Contingency – Paid if they win on injury cases, suing for owed life insurance money, class actions, some employment wage cases

It’s up to you and the law firm to agree on what type of fee arrangement to enter in to. No matter what you agree on, your contract with them will likely have a clause that says that they get reimbursed for their expenses. For…