No specific cap, in any type of personal injury case
Kansas doesn't write a specific percentage ceiling into any statute governing personal injury or wrongful death attorney fees — including medical malpractice. The sole governing standard is the general reasonableness requirement of Kansas Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(a), the same provision that applies to every type of legal fee in the state.
A genuine contrast with states that write in a number
Compare this to a state like Illinois, which caps medical malpractice attorney fees at a flat 33⅓%, written directly into statute. Kansas has no equivalent provision for any type of personal injury claim — the percentage is set entirely by private agreement, reviewed only against the general reasonableness standard if it's ever challenged.
The practical effect is smaller than it sounds
Despite having no specific ceiling, Kansas contingency fees in practice cluster in a familiar 33% to 40% range — driven by market competition among attorneys and the general reasonableness standard, rather than a statutory number. The absence of a specific cap doesn't translate into dramatically different fees than states that do write one in.
A separate issue from Kansas's 2019 damages ruling
It's worth being clear that Hilburn v. Enerpipe, which struck down Kansas's noneconomic damages cap in 2019, addressed what a plaintiff can recover — not what an attorney can charge. Attorney fees are governed entirely separately, by the Rules of Professional Conduct, and were untouched by that decision.
Kansas's approach is actually the more common one
Nationally, most states rely on a general reasonableness standard for personal injury contingency fees, with a specific statutory percentage cap being the exception rather than the rule — usually reserved for medical malpractice specifically. Kansas's uncapped approach, in that sense, is closer to the national norm than the states that have written in a number.