When you hire an attorney in Illinois, you are responsible for their fee and their expenses. In an hourly fee case like a divorce, those expenses come out of the retainer fee and are billed monthly or whenever they charge you on a case. It works way differently on cases where you hire the attorney on a contingency basis.

Most Illinois contingency fee agreements are for injury cases like car accidents, workers compensation, medical malpractice, etc. Those contracts will say something to the effect of the attorney will receive a percentage of any recovery that is made (1/3 for malpractice…