Here we are again with Lawyer Talk. Q-A-A.

Another segment of our ongoing Q and A series.

And if you haven't caught on yet, I'll just catch you up to speed.

I am taking questions on the website Lawyer Talk podcast.

Com or questions that come in in at the law firm upstairs at ohiolegaledefense.

Com Palmer.

And then I'm summarizing the questions and answers right here on Lawyer Talk.

Q-A-A.

We've been doing this for a while in the show, but often it's buried in the

long form discussions that we have on various topics.

And I think this is an easier way to get the content out, get people's questions

answered quickly and give them a little bitesized chunk to digest.

It's a lot easier that way. So that said the question of the day.

This came on the website Lawyer tarpodcast.

Com.

And the question is, if I end up going to

court and I win, can I claim back my legal costs?

So the idea here is this individual

wants to go to court either civilly or criminally.

And I'm going to comment on both because there's a huge difference.

They want to know if they win the case.

Can they get back their costs?

It's sort of a broad question, and it's

going to require a little bit of unpacking and breakdown.

Let's start with the civil side of things.

And civil means you're suing somebody for damages.

Say you're in a car crash.

Say somebody hit you in the nose and broke

your nose, and you're suing them to get your medical costs.

Say it was a breach of contract.

You tried to buy something or you contracted for somebody to do some

work at your house and they screwed it up and you want to sue them.

So you go to court and maybe even small claims court.

Most States and jurisdictions have some

version of small claims court designed to give the little man

the regular citizen, the common person access to the court.

And here's generally how it works to file an action to file a lawsuit.

It usually costs money.

There's a filing fee, and sometimes it's several hundred dollars.

If you go all the way up to federal court, it gets quite expensive.

And even in some of the state courts now, it's several hundred dollars.

Small claims is a little bit cheaper.

So the idea that you can just go sue somebody and get your money back,

you've got to sort of do a cost benefit analysis.

And that's why this is a good question.

So say you sue somebody, you pay the filing fees and you go to court.

Just picture people's court for now or Judge Judy or something like that.

You make your case.

You say I hired this person to fix my car, they screwed up my car.

Even worse. My engine blew up, cost me $5,000, and the

judge slams the gavel down and says, I agree you win after hearing the evidence.

It looks like this individual

ripped you off and or was negligent and or did something

wrong and you should be compensated for the loss.

Now, there are provisions in most courts

that let you recoup the filing fees and basic court costs.

But the big cost say it's not small claims.

You had to hire an attorney, say you had to pay somebody to represent you.

The big cost is the lawyers the expense of the litigation.

And it's not uncommon anymore.

You go to the big cities.

Lawyers are charging $1,000 an hour, sometimes

for legal representation, smaller towns and smaller States.

Not so much, but you could pay a lot of money for legal

fees and leaving aside for a second contingent fees where it's a car crash.

An attorney represents you for

on a contingency where say they take a third or 40% of the recovery.

If it goes to trial,

it's just hourly cost that you've lost and you want to get that back.

There are some cases where courts have the discretion to order fees.

In other words, it's so egregious that they should never fought it.

The other side should never fought it.

Sometimes courts can order the other side to pay legal fees.

If there is some action or conduct

by the other attorney, the person on the other side,

their attorney has done something that is a little bit outside the rules.

They've forced you to spend more money than you should have because of some

dishonest or disingenuous conduct or position.

We call that rule Eleven.

There can be sanctions against that other person or the other attorney to make them

pay the legal costs or say that doesn't exist and you just win.

You may be able to get compensation

for some of the costs, but generally not attorneys fees.

Now, aside from the rule Eleven or the misconduct sanctions, there are other

types of actions in civil court where Attorney's fees

are baked into the equation in federal court, under civil rights violations.

Under instance, there is a provision under the

statute to pay for the attorney if you succeed.

And a lot of times attorneys wouldn't take these cases.

Except for that provision,

part of the settlement is often the attorney fee component of it, and

the idea is to encourage lawyers to take those cases.

I'm not going to take a position whether I agree or disagree.

I haven't really unpacked that and sorted it out in my head completely.

My gut tells me I probably don't agree, but who knows?

Anyway, that sometimes baked into the

equation, and attorneys will take those cases only because of that provision.

Now, before I go on, I should say there's another line to the question

where the individual is asking if the judge can award legal costs and whether

costs are covered by the losing party like they do in the UK.

So in the United Kingdom, I don't know if there's individuals from the UK but it

wouldn't surprise me, as everybody knows we are popular around the world.

But the answer is I don't know exactly

what the rules are in Britain in their legal system.

I did spend a summer over there back in

the 90s studying legal theory and philosophy.

I don't have a good answer to that whether

it's the same, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's similar.

Now let me talk about criminal cases because that is my bread and butter.

That's what I do. It's near and dear in my heart.

I represent folks charged with crimes, and

I do get this question in the context of criminal cases very often.

In fact, just the other day, somebody

called and said, Well, I'll pay you to represent me, but this is a bunch of BS.

This is bunk.

I should never have to be here.

If I win, can I Sue the other side and recoup my costs?

The answer up front, usually for people, is probably not.

I hate to say that, but probably not.

Now, there are certain situations where you can.

There is such thing as wrongful prosecution.

It requires a fairly substantial burden of proof.

You have to show that somebody intentionally

falsified allegations that the prosecutor intentionally tried to prosecute you

falsely, so you might be able to sue the other individual, the private person who

accused you of something criminal for completely lying.

Now, Incidentally, that is a crime.

You can't make a false police report.

You can't falsely accuse somebody.

It's not often prosecuted, but sometimes

it is particularly in the area of domestic violence.

But let's say the prosecutor picks up the torch and runs with it.

And you want to sue the prosecutor or the

state of Ohio or some other government entity for prosecuting you wrongfully.

It's possible.

But it's a very difficult hurdle to surmount.

And most of the time it's not there.

So it sucks.

People are wrongfully accused.

They win the case, they've spent a lot of money in their defense.

They've expended lots of emotional resources.

They've turmoiled with it.

They've lost sleep over it.

Maybe they've lost jobs.

There's lots of loss that go along with being wrongfully accused of something.

And unfortunately, there's not a great way to recoup that.

Winning is the win and getting out of it is the win.

And it's a very difficult pill to swallow.

So in the civil side of it, there are provisions where you can recoup costs.

It is very fact specific and course of action specific in the

sense, it depends on what you're suing somebody for on the criminal side.

Not so much.

You're not going to recoup your legal fees

most of the time, but it's a good question, and I encourage

everybody going into it to ask their criminal defense attorney.

That very question.

Sometimes what I'll do if I have a case

in one final, I guess, situation that arises, I should comment on,

say somebody has been arrested and this has happened to me.

Just recently, there was

some folks arrested up at the High State University on game day.

They were tackled, taken to the ground,

charged with resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, obstruction of official business.

Like I call it the Unhappy Triad.

And maybe it's because the police

took a few too many liberties or one too many wax when they took them down.

But they still have a crime that they have to defend.

So to get them defending the crime part and parcel with that, I will often

make a referral early on in the defense to a civil rights attorney.

Somebody who under Section 1983 of the United States Code does that kind of work?

Who can look at this and say yes, if you win the criminal case or

you might have a civil rights violation that you can pursue afterwards, and then

my legal fees on the criminal defense side become part of the damage request.

So that is a component that you got to be mindful of.

I know this is probably a lot more than

what the questioner was asking, but that's what we do here at Lawyer Talk.

So another riveting session of lawyer Talk Q-A-A.

And I have more to come, so stay tuned

as we dig into the questions that seem to be coming more and more these days.

And as always, if you have your own question, go to lawyerchalkpodcast.

Com. There's an email submission form.

Send it if you want to ask in person, give me a shout upstairs.

614-224-6142 or look us up at ohiolegaledefense.

Com at Steve Palmer at yavichempalmer been

doing this for the better part now of 26 years.

Imagine that

the most fun I've had is answering these questions here on Lawyer Talk, though,

so keep the questions coming and we're going to keep the answers is coming.

This is Lawyer Talk. Q-A-A.

Off the record, but on the air at least until now.