The attorney's fee is usually borne by the client. Generally speaking, whoever asks for a lawyer pays, because this is an entrustment contract, and both the parties and the lawyer are parties to the contract, which is only binding on them. However, in some cases, such as the parties to the contract have an agreement on the subject of legal fees, or in some intellectual property cases such as trademark rights and patent rights, the plaintiff requires the defendant to bear the legal fees arising from the investigation and stop the infringement in the complaint, and the court may decide that the losing party will bear the legal fees.
Who will pay the legal fees for winning the lawsuit?
In most cases, the lawyer's fee for winning a lawsuit is paid by the client. Therefore, when drawing up a contract, both parties to the contract can list the lawyer's fees as compensation for breach of contract, and even specify the way and standard of bearing the lawyer's fees in detail. When drafting such a breach of contract clause, special attention should be paid to clearly stating "lawyer's fees". Others, such as the "fees for realizing creditor's rights", are not clear and may not be supported by lawyer's fees. The court's examination of this agreement is very strict.
The plaintiff must submit the entrustment contract signed with the law firm and the lawyer's fee invoice issued by the law firm as evidence to pay the lawyer's fee. But how much specific support depends on the judge's discretion. According to the nature of the case, the court will usually support the "reasonable" lawyer's fee, not the full fee.
In contemporary society, if a dispute is resolved through a civil lawsuit and the case is finally won, the specific payment of attorney's fees should be borne by the client. This is also a concrete way adopted in China's judicial practice at present, and it may be borne by the losing party in the future.
To sum up, the legal fees shall be paid in advance by the plaintiff to the court, and shall be borne by the losing party or both parties after the judgment.
Legal basis:
Article 12 1 of the Civil Procedure Law of People's Republic of China (PRC).
When a party conducts a civil lawsuit, it shall pay the case acceptance fee in accordance with the regulations. In addition to paying the case acceptance fee, property cases also pay other litigation fees in accordance with regulations.
If it is really difficult for the parties to pay the legal fees, they may apply to the people's court for deferment, reduction or exemption in accordance with regulations.
Measures for charging litigation fees shall be formulated separately.