What Is the Attorney Fee?
The attorney fee is the monetary amount an attorney is entitled to in return for services such as legal advice, litigation, drafting petitions, enforcement proceedings and similar work provided to the client. In our law, the attorney fee is assessed under two separate concepts: the contractual attorney fee determined by agreement between the attorney and the client, and the counterparty (statutory) attorney fee charged to the losing party as a litigation cost in favour of the winning party. Not confusing these two is extremely important in order to avoid a loss of rights.
The contractual attorney fee may be freely agreed between the parties; however, this freedom is not unlimited. The attorney and the client set the amount they agree upon by means of a written attorney engagement agreement. The counterparty attorney fee, by contrast, is a receivable adjudged directly by the court's decision and belonging to the attorney of the winning party.
Legal Basis: The Minimum Attorney Fee Tariff
The fundamental legal basis of the attorney fee is the Attorney Fee Tariff (Minimum Attorney Fee Tariff), prepared each year by the Union of Turkish Bar Associations (TBB) and published in the Official Gazette pursuant to the Attorneyship Law No. 1136. This tariff sets the lower limit of the minimum fee an attorney may claim for a given piece of work. Agreeing on a fee below the tariff is, as a rule, invalid under the Attorneyship Law.
The tariff contains two basic calculation logics:
- Fixed (maktu) fee: the fee set as a fixed amount for matters that cannot be assessed in money, or for certain items specified in the tariff. For example, divorce, custody and civil-registry correction cases involve a fixed fee.
- Proportional (nispi) fee: the fee calculated by applying graduated rates over the amount in dispute in cases whose subject is a specific sum of money or value of property. The proportional tariff comes into play in debt, compensation and recovery (restitution) cases.
How Is the Attorney Fee Calculated?
The proportional attorney fee is calculated by dividing the amount in dispute into the brackets set out in the tariff and applying the rate for each bracket separately. The tariff has a graduated (increasing-bracket) structure: as the amount in dispute grows, the rate applied to the upper brackets decreases. For this reason, in high-value cases the fee increases not in direct proportion to the amount in dispute, but in a graduated manner.
The general calculation logic follows these steps:
- First the type of dispute is determined; it is established whether the matter is subject to the fixed or the proportional tariff.
- If it is proportional, the amount in dispute (the debt, compensation or property value claimed) is taken as the basis.
- The amount in dispute is placed into the tariff brackets and the total is found by applying the relevant rate to each bracket.
- If the calculated amount falls below the fixed lower limit for that matter, the fixed amount is taken as the basis, because the tariff guarantees the minimum limit.
The calculation you make with this tool is a preliminary estimate based on the general logic of the tariff. The exact amount is shaped by the current tariff for the year in which the case was filed, the specific nature of the dispute, and the discretion of the court.
The Counterparty Attorney Fee
The counterparty attorney fee is the fee the losing party is obliged to pay to the attorney of the winning party. The court adjudges this fee in the decision it renders at the end of the proceedings. An important point: the counterparty attorney fee is entirely independent of the contractual fee the winning party pays to their own attorney. Even if you win the case, the fee in the agreement with your own attorney and the fee the court has recovered from the counterparty may be different amounts.
In cases that are partly won, the attorney fee is shared between the parties according to the ratio of acceptance to rejection. In other words, if part of the claim is accepted and part is rejected, both parties may become partly entitled to the counterparty attorney fee.
Points to Watch
- Current tariff: the tariff changes every year. In the calculation, the tariff for the year in which the case was filed or the transaction was carried out must be taken as the basis.
- Written agreement: the fee between the attorney and the client must be set by a written attorney engagement agreement; this provides ease of proof in any dispute that may later arise.
- VAT distinction: attorney services are subject to VAT. The agreement must clearly state whether the fee agreed is inclusive or exclusive of VAT.
- Minimum limit: a fee below the tariff is invalid; however, the parties may freely agree on a fee above the tariff.
- Enforcement and follow-up work: proceedings such as enforcement follow-up and the annulment of an objection have their own specific fee items; these must be assessed separately.
Common Mistakes
- Thinking the contractual attorney fee and the counterparty attorney fee are the same thing, and assuming no payment will be made to the attorney once the case is won.
- Making the calculation with an old year's tariff and thus mis-estimating the current amount.
- Trying to calculate a fixed-fee matter according to the proportional tariff, or vice versa.
- Miscalculating the proportional fee by determining the amount in dispute incompletely or incorrectly.
- Making the fee agreement orally and not committing it to a written document, thereby facing a problem of proof.
A Short Example Scenario
Suppose you have a claim of 200,000 TL in a debt case and you win the case. In this situation two separate attorney fees come into play. The first is the contractual fee set out in the agreement you signed with your own attorney; you pay this. The second is the counterparty attorney fee that the court adjudges against the other party; this is calculated over the amount in dispute by applying the proportional tariff, and is recovered from the losing party and paid to your attorney. If only half of the claim had been accepted, the attorney fee too would have been shared according to the acceptance-rejection ratio. This example is important in showing why the attorney fee is not a single amount and the central role of the amount in dispute in the calculation.
Disclaimer: the explanations and calculation tool on this page are for general information purposes only; they do not constitute legal advice or any commitment as to the exact amount. For the current tariff and a detailed assessment of your specific situation, it is advisable to consult an attorney.