Each Party Usually Pays Their Own Attorney’s Fees
Video Transcribed: Who pays attorney’s fees in a breach of contract in Oklahoma? I’m an attorney in Tulsa James Wirth. And that’s the issue that’s brought before me. As far as attorneys’ fees go, the United States has what’s called the American rule as opposed to the English rule.
So in American rule, the general start, the starting point, the default is each party pays their own attorney’s fees. And that is the way it goes unless there is a specific statutory rule that is different than that. And in the case of breach of contract, there is.
Oklahoma law does provide in civil procedure that there is a prevailing party rule that’s applicable most of the time for breach of contract cases. So if you’re retaining an attorney for that, you could pay a contingency fee if the attorney’s willing to take it on a contingency, meaning that they only get paid if there’s a recovery and they get a percentage of the recovery.
Most of the time though, we see in breach of contract cases, it is a retainer and you would pay the retainer upfront. However, if you are successful in that case, you could request attorneys’ fees based on being the prevailing party. And the court may award those to you. Generally, that is the case in a breach of contract.
So who pays the attorney? Generally, you pay your attorney up front and that may be subject to being paid by the other side if you are successful in the case.
If you’ve got more specific questions about that, you’re going to want to talk to an attorney about that confidentially. To get that scheduled with somebody at my office you can go to makelaweasy.com.
