The core promise: no recovery, no fee
A contingency fee means the attorney's fee is contingent — dependent — on actually winning or settling the case. If there's no recovery at all, the client generally owes no attorney fee, regardless of how much work went into the case.
What the agreement is legally required to say
Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct require a contingent fee agreement to be in writing and to clearly state the method used to determine the fee, including whether different rates apply at different stages of the case.
Outside medical malpractice: a negotiated rate
For an ordinary personal injury claim, Indiana sets no statutory percentage cap at all. The rate is whatever the attorney and client agree to, with around one-third being the common market figure.
Medical malpractice: the source of the money genuinely matters
Here's a genuinely distinctive Indiana feature. A medical malpractice recovery against a qualified provider can come from two different sources: the provider's own payment, capped at $500,000 per occurrence, and the state's Patient's Compensation Fund, which covers any excess up to the $1,800,000 total cap. The fee on the first source carries no specific statutory limit, just ordinary reasonableness. The fee on the second is capped at a flat 15% under IC 34-18-18-1.
Courts have closed the obvious workaround
This split created an obvious temptation: take a larger fee from the uncapped provider portion to offset the 15% limit on Fund money. Indiana's courts and disciplinary bodies have specifically rejected this. An attorney's overall compensation must still meet the general reasonableness standard regardless of its source, and the 15% limit on Fund-sourced money applies on its own terms — it can't be diluted by restructuring where the fee is formally taken from.