No percentage cap
Pennsylvania imposes no statutory percentage cap on contingency fees in personal injury or medical malpractice cases. The governing standard is Rule 1.5 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, which prohibits an "illegal or clearly excessive" fee rather than fixing a specific figure.
What reasonableness actually weighs
Rule 1.5 points to the usual factors: the time and labor required, the skill needed to perform the work properly, the fee customarily charged for similar services, the amount involved, and the experience of the attorney. One-third of the recovery is a commonly used figure in Pennsylvania personal injury practice, though it isn't a fixed statutory rate.
A different regime for workers' compensation
It's worth keeping this separate from workers' compensation, where Pennsylvania law generally caps attorney fees at 20% of a claimant's indemnity benefits under the state's Workers' Compensation Act — a distinct legal framework from ordinary personal injury contingency fees, with its own approval process through a workers' compensation judge.