No legislative fee cap, for a real constitutional reason
Utah has no legislative cap on contingency fees in personal injury cases. This isn't simply an absence of legislation — in Injured Workers Association of Utah v. State (2016), the Utah Supreme Court struck down a decades-old statutory fee schedule the Labor Commission applied to workers' compensation attorney fees, holding that the Utah Constitution vests the Utah Supreme Court with exclusive authority to govern the practice of law, including the regulation of attorney fees. The legislature, the court held, cannot delegate that authority to a state agency.
What that ruling actually struck down
The invalidated schedule had set workers' comp attorney fees at 25% of the first $25,000 of an award, 20% of the next $25,000, and 10% of anything above $50,000, with an $18,590 hard cap. The court declined to impose a replacement schedule, reasoning that the absence of a fee schedule would let injured workers and their attorneys negotiate appropriate fees directly, with the attorney disciplinary process available to check any truly excessive fee.
Rule 1.5 governs instead
For personal injury contingency fees generally, Utah Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5(c) requires a written agreement specifying the percentage and how costs are handled, with the fee's overall reasonableness assessed against Rule 1.5(a)'s standard factors. Contingency fees in Utah personal injury practice generally range from 33% (one-third) for cases that settle before litigation to 40% or higher if the case goes to trial.