Ask a litigator what a lawsuit costs and you will get the only honest answer in the profession: it depends.
But "it depends" is not a budget. General counsel have to put a number in a spreadsheet. Funders have to underwrite one. Plaintiffs deciding whether to sue deserve better than a shrug. So here are the real ranges — drawn from the AIPLA's biennial Economic Survey, Federal Judicial Center research, and two decades of published fee awards. They will not be exact for your case. They will be closer than anything else you have.
Commercial litigation: $50,000 to $500,000+
A mid-complexity commercial dispute — breach of contract, business tort, partnership fight — that runs from filing through trial typically costs each side between $50,000 and $500,000 in legal fees, with most landing in the $150,000–$350,000 band. Cases that settle in discovery, as roughly 95%+ of filed cases do, cost far less: a case that resolves at or shortly after mediation often totals $50,000–$150,000.
Where does the money go? Phase by phase, a rough allocation for a case that goes the distance:
- Pleadings and motion practice (10–15%): Complaint, answer, early motions to dismiss. $15,000–$50,000.
- Discovery (35–50%): The great devourer. Document collection, review, depositions. E-discovery review alone can run $1–$3 per document in managed review; a case with 100,000 documents easily burns $150,000+ before a single deposition is taken. This is where budgets die.
- Experts (10–20%): Damages and liability experts bill $400–$900 per hour; a full expert engagement with report and testimony runs $50,000–$150,000 per expert.
- Trial (20–30%): Preparation and a one-to-two-week trial. $100,000–$250,000 for a mid-size commercial trial.
The single biggest cost driver is not the law firm's hourly rate — it is the other side's aggression. An opponent that fights every discovery request can double your spend without changing the merits one iota. Remember the rule that every veteran litigator learns the expensive way: you do not budget for your case; you budget for theirs.
Patent litigation: $1 million to $5 million+
Patent cases are the heavyweight division. The AIPLA Economic Survey has consistently found that a patent infringement suit with $1–$10 million at risk costs a median of roughly $1–$2 million per side through trial, and cases with more than $25 million at risk run $3–$5 million or more. Inter partes review at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board is cheaper — typically $250,000–$500,000 per proceeding — which is why IPR has become the standard defensive weapon since 2012.
Patent costs skew high for structural reasons: claim construction (Markman) proceedings require deep technical work, expert witnesses are specialized PhDs billing at the top of the market, and discovery in tech cases routinely involves millions of documents plus source code review under protective order. Venue matters too — the Western District of Texas and the District of Delaware move fast, and speed in patent litigation usually means spending faster, not spending less.
Employment, personal injury, and mass torts
Employment cases (discrimination, wrongful termination, wage-and-hour) are the volume business of litigation. A single-plaintiff employment case that goes to trial typically costs $75,000–$250,000 per side; most settle for total defense costs under $100,000. Wage-and-hour class actions are a different animal — $500,000 to several million in fees is common, which is precisely why the plaintiffs' bar hunts them.
Personal injury cases cost the plaintiff little out of pocket — contingency fees of 33–40% mean the lawyer funds the case — but the economics are real: a serious injury case taken to trial can require $50,000–$200,000 in case costs (experts, exhibits, depositions) advanced by the firm. Medical malpractice is the most expensive PI subset, with defense costs routinely exceeding $150,000 per case.
Mass torts operate on inventory economics. Lead counsel may invest $10–$50 million developing the litigation — science, experts, bellwether trials, advertising — before a global settlement. Individual case costs are modest; the portfolio cost is enormous. This is why mass torts are the most heavily financed corner of the plaintiffs' bar, and why funders price them like venture portfolios: most of the return comes from a few winning inventories.
The phase that breaks budgets
Across every case type, one pattern holds: discovery is where money goes to die, and trial is where the rest follows. Clients who want to control cost should negotiate discovery budgets and ESI protocols before the first document is collected — that single step, taken early, saves more than any amount of rate discounting later. And the cheapest phase of litigation is always the one that ends the case: early case assessment and a clear-eyed settlement valuation in the first 90 days.
Litigation budgets are built on ranges, but decisions are made on specifics. LawsuitCosts.com publishes the cost intelligence — by case type, by phase, by venue — that turns "it depends" into a number you can plan around.