The problem of recovering litigation costs drives many of the claims for imaginative damages. Contingent fees create an undue emphasis on the extent of the plaintiff's damages, and they encourage the filing and prosecution of cases with large damages but little negligence.
For example, if you sell your apples from your orchard when the trees are yet to produce apples, the apples are a contingent good.
What Is a Contingency? A contingency is a potential occurrence of a negative event in the future, such as an economic recession, natural disaster, fraudulent activity, terrorist attack, or a pandemic.
It provides: “Use the singular possessive case 'attorney's fees' (not 'attorneys'') in the term 'attorney's fees,' even though in the particular case more than one attorney may be involved.” OFF. OF THE REP. OF DECISIONS, THE SUPREME COURT'S STYLE GUIDE § 10.3 (Jack Metzler ed., 2016).