You have a valid claim. A vendor owes you $300,000. A partner defrauded you. A customer breached a contract that cost your business seven figures. You called two or three law firms, described the situation, and each one quoted a retainer between $25,000 and $75,000 just to get started, with hourly rates that will push the total legal spend well beyond that as the case progresses. You’re owed money, and now you need to spend money you might not have to recover it. That barrier stops more legitimate commercial claims from being filed than any legal obstacle does. Warner & Scheuerman built their practice around eliminating it. Contingent commercial litigation means the firm takes your case without requiring an upfront retainer and ties its fee to the outcome. If you don’t recover, you don’t pay legal fees. The model exists because valid commercial claims shouldn’t die in a desk drawer because the claimant can’t write a five-figure check to a law firm.
How the Hourly Model Fails Business Plaintiffs
The hourly billing model works well for certain types of legal work. Corporate transactions, regulatory compliance, and defensive litigation where the stakes justify open-ended spending are all contexts where hourly billing is appropriate and expected. The client has the resources, the matter is ongoing, and the relationship is structured around continuous access to legal counsel.
Commercial litigation on the plaintiff’s side is different. You’re the one who’s been harmed. Your cash flow is already impaired by the loss you’re trying to recover. The legal fees required to pursue the claim add a second financial wound on top of the first. And unlike defensive litigation, where the company is protecting an existing position, plaintiff-side commercial litigation is an investment in a future recovery that may or may not materialize.
The math is brutal for mid-market businesses. A commercial case that goes through discovery, depositions, motion practice, and trial can easily generate $150,000 to $300,000 in legal fees at standard Manhattan rates. For a business pursuing a $500,000 claim, those fees consume 30 to 60 percent of the recovery before the client sees a dollar. For a business pursuing a $200,000 claim, the fees can approach or exceed the recovery itself, making the entire exercise economically irrational even if the legal merits are strong.
This creates a gap in the market. Large corporations with in-house legal departments and litigation budgets can afford to pursue claims on an hourly basis. Individuals with personal injury claims have always had access to contingency representation. But mid-market businesses, small companies, and professionals with legitimate commercial disputes worth six or seven figures are often stranded between a claim they can’t afford to litigate and a loss they can’t afford to absorb.
How Contingent Commercial Litigation Works
The structure is simple in concept. The firm evaluates your case. If the claim is strong and the defendant has the financial capacity to pay a judgment, the firm takes the case and performs the legal work at its own expense. The firm’s fee is a percentage of whatever is recovered, whether through settlement or verdict. If the case produces no recovery, the firm earns no fee.
The evaluation stage is where the model differs most from hourly practice. An hourly firm can afford to take almost any case because the client is paying regardless of outcome. A contingency firm can only take cases it believes will produce a recovery large enough to justify the investment of time and resources. That selectivity means the evaluation is rigorous. The firm analyzes the legal merits, the evidentiary support, the likely damages, the defendant’s financial capacity, and the realistic timeline to resolution before agreeing to take the case.
This evaluation benefits the client directly. If a contingency firm accepts your case, it means experienced commercial litigators have concluded that your claim is viable and that the defendant has collectible assets. That assessment carries weight because the firm’s own money is on the line. They’re not telling you what you want to hear to earn a retainer. They’re making a business decision about whether to invest their resources in your case.
If the evaluation concludes that the claim isn’t strong enough, or that the defendant is unlikely to be able to pay a judgment, the firm declines the case. That’s a useful answer too, because it saves you from spending $50,000 in legal fees to discover the same thing through litigation.
What Types of Cases Qualify for Contingent Representation
Not every commercial dispute is suitable for contingency. The model works best when several conditions are met.
The claim needs to be substantial. Most contingency firms require a minimum claim value that justifies the investment. A $15,000 invoice dispute, while legally valid, doesn’t produce a recovery large enough to sustain the economics of contingent representation. Claims in the mid-six figures and above are the typical threshold, though this varies by firm and by the specifics of the case.
The liability needs to be clear. Cases where the breach is well documented, the contract terms are unambiguous, and the facts favor the plaintiff are stronger contingency candidates than cases that depend on witness credibility contests or unsettled areas of law. The contingency firm is underwriting the risk of the outcome, and they favor cases where that risk is manageable.
The defendant needs to have money. A $1 million judgment against a defendant with no assets is a $1 million piece of paper. Contingency firms evaluate the defendant’s financial profile before taking the case because there’s no point in winning a verdict that can’t be collected. Warner & Scheuerman’s on-staff investigative team conducts this assessment as part of the intake process, looking at the defendant’s real property, business operations, banking relationships, and financial footprint before the firm commits to the representation.
The types of claims that commonly qualify include breach of contract for goods sold and delivered, business partnership and shareholder disputes, commission and fee disputes, fraud and conversion claims, breach of personal guarantees, and judgment collection on existing verdicts.
The Alignment of Interests That Hourly Billing Doesn’t Provide
Hourly billing creates a structural misalignment between attorney and client. The attorney earns more when the case takes longer. The client benefits when the case resolves quickly. The attorney has no financial stake in the outcome. The client has everything at stake. Neither party intends this misalignment, and most hourly attorneys work ethically within the model. But the incentive structure is what it is.
Contingency representation flips the alignment. The firm earns nothing unless the client recovers. A longer case means more uncompensated work for the firm. A faster resolution at a higher dollar amount benefits both the firm and the client simultaneously. The firm has a financial incentive to pursue the most efficient path to the largest recovery, which is exactly what the client wants.
This alignment also affects how settlement offers are evaluated. An hourly attorney who recommends that a client reject a settlement offer and proceed to trial is asking the client to spend more money on fees with an uncertain outcome. A contingency attorney who recommends the same is putting the firm’s own resources at risk alongside the client’s claim. That shared risk produces more honest strategic advice because the attorney’s recommendation carries the same financial consequences for the firm as it does for the client.
Why Warner & Scheuerman’s Model Is Different from Standard Contingency Practice
Personal injury firms have operated on contingency for decades. Commercial litigation on contingency is less common because the cases are more complex, the discovery is more expensive, and the outcomes are harder to predict than a personal injury claim with clear damages and liability.
Warner & Scheuerman combines contingent commercial litigation with judgment collection capability, which is what makes the model work across a wider range of cases. A firm that can only litigate the case but can’t collect the judgment is taking on risk without controlling the full outcome. Warner & Scheuerman litigates the case, obtains the judgment, and then enforces it using the same investigative and enforcement resources they deploy for standalone judgment collection matters. The case doesn’t end at the verdict. It ends when the money is in the client’s hands.
That end-to-end capability means the firm’s evaluation at intake accounts for both the likelihood of winning and the likelihood of collecting. A case that’s easy to win but hard to collect may still be worth taking if the firm’s investigators can identify a path to recovery that a standard litigation firm wouldn’t pursue. That depth of analysis at the front end is what allows the firm to take cases that other contingency firms pass on.
Talk to Warner & Scheuerman Before You Write a Retainer Check
If you’ve been quoted a five-figure retainer to pursue a commercial claim and you’re hesitating, the retainer isn’t the only option. Warner & Scheuerman evaluates commercial litigation cases for contingent representation with no upfront cost. The initial assessment covers the merits of your claim, the defendant’s financial capacity, and the realistic range of recovery. If the case qualifies, the firm takes it on contingency. If it doesn’t, you’ll know why and you can make an informed decision about whether hourly litigation is worth the investment.