What are your options actually worth?
Put in your own numbers. The comparison below is the arithmetic most people never do, which is usually why the business wins by default.
The amount you paid for work that wasn't delivered, or what it would take to make you whole.
What another contractor would charge to finish or repair the work.
Rough hourly-attorney cost to pursue a claim this size through to resolution.
Walk away
−$9,000
You absorb the loss and pay someone else to put it right. The business keeps your money and learns that this works.
Hire an attorney
+$6,000
Viable, and sometimes the right answer. At this claim size the fees often consume most of what's recovered, which is why contingency firms usually decline disputes this size.
Work with us
+$10,200
We're reimbursed 10-20%* of what we actually recover, only if successful.
* Figures above are illustrative. Our share of a recovery falls in the 10-20% range and the comparison uses 15% to calculate; where yours falls depends on the state you're in, the type of advocacy file, and its value. Enrolling also carries an initial engagement cost covering the work of building your file and starting advocacy, which is credited against whatever we recover for you. The exact figures for your situation are shown in your portal and in the agreement you sign, after we review your advocacy file and before you pay anything.
And if we don't obtain redress? The engagement charge is the only money you ever pay us: no hourly billing, no bill for the attempt. You keep the complete file we built, and you can still take it to an attorney afterwards, which is cheaper for you than starting from nothing.
It isn't free for them either
If this went to court, the business would face its own legal bill, plausibly somewhere near the $6,000 above, plus the time of whoever has to deal with it, plus a licensing-board complaint and a public record that outlast the dispute. That asymmetry is the leverage. A documented claim that keeps escalating gets resolved because resolving it is the cheaper option, not because anyone sues.
The figures assume we recover the full amount1, which won't always happen. What doesn't change is the downside: if we don't obtain redress, the engagement charge is the only thing you ever pay us2. Read how redress works or how our costs work.
Disclosures
- 1.This is an illustration, not a prediction. It assumes the full disputed amount is recovered, which is not something we guarantee or can know in advance. Attorney-cost defaults are placeholder estimates and have not been researched against real ranges in any state. No figure here should be relied on for a financial decision in its current form.
- 2.The figures used are representative and for illustration only. Both the engagement charge and our share of a recovery vary by state, by service type, and by the value of the advocacy file. The exact amounts for your situation are disclosed in your portal and in the consumer service agreement, after we review your advocacy file and before you sign or pay anything. Mechanically, the engagement charge is credited against our share rather than added to it, so the total is the greater of the two and not the sum. All of it is subject to that agreement, which has not yet been drafted, and to any applicable state limits on fees charged by non-attorney representatives.