A "clearly excessive" state, not a numeric-cap state
Compare Oregon to a state like New York, which applies a hard statutory sliding scale to medical malpractice attorney fees specifically. Oregon has no equivalent figure anywhere in its rules for any type of personal injury claim — the fee simply can't be "clearly excessive" under RPC 1.5(a), assessed case by case, and must separately be a reasonable contingent fee under RPC 1.8(i)(2).
Two separate things that sound related but aren't
It's worth being clear that Oregon's noneconomic damages cap under ORS 31.710 — itself a genuinely complicated, two-track story depending on whether a claim is for wrongful death or ordinary bodily injury — has nothing to do with attorney fees. That cap, where it genuinely applies, limits what a plaintiff can recover from a defendant; the attorney's own percentage fee remains governed entirely by RPC 1.5 and 1.8, untouched by whatever happens with the damages cap in a given case.
A distinctly worded, but practically similar, standard
Oregon's "clearly excessive" language in RPC 1.5(a) reads differently from the plain "unreasonable fee" standard many other states use. In practice, though, Oregon courts and ethics opinions have treated the "clearly excessive" standard and the separate "reasonableness" requirement of RPC 1.8(i)(2) as largely coextensive — the wording differs, but the functional analysis lands in a similar place.
Fee-shifting cases follow a different method entirely
Where a statute allows the prevailing party to recover attorney fees from the opposing side, Oregon courts generally apply the lodestar method — hours reasonably spent, multiplied by a reasonable rate — rather than simply awarding a percentage of the recovery, even when the client retained the attorney on a contingency basis. This is a distinct analysis from ordinary contingency fee reasonableness.