How legal fees are allocated when a claim is partially granted

When this applies

This cal­cu­la­tion is for a civil case in which one mon­e­tary claim was par­tial­ly granted. It shows what pro­por­tion of the claimant’s costs already de­ter­mined by the court cor­re­sponds to the granted part of the claim, and what pro­por­tion of the de­fen­dant’s costs already de­ter­mined by the court cor­re­sponds to the re­ject­ed part.

The formula is not in­tend­ed for mixed mon­e­tary and non-mon­e­tary claims, a coun­ter­claim, mul­ti­ple claimants or de­fen­dants, a set­tle­ment, ter­mi­na­tion of pro­ceed­ings, or com­par­ing costs from dif­fer­ent in­stances. The basis and al­lo­ca­tion rule may differ in those sit­u­a­tions.

For a quick check of the four input amounts, use the legal as­sis­tance cost al­lo­ca­tion cal­cu­la­tor. A sep­a­rate guide to re­cov­er­ing at­tor­ney fees and the ev­i­dence dead­line cal­cu­la­tor explain how to claim and sub­stan­ti­ate costs and check the pro­ce­dur­al dead­line.

Applicable deadline or procedure

Let C be the value of the claim, A the amount granted by the court, P the claimant’s costs rec­og­nized by the court, and D the de­fen­dant’s costs rec­og­nized by the court. For this narrow case, the arith­metic is:

1. Claimant’s success share: success = A / C.
2. Claimant’s pro­por­tion­al amount: plaintiff gross = P * A / C.
3. De­fen­dant’s pro­por­tion­al amount: defendant gross = D * (C - A) / C.

For a cal­cu­la­tor es­ti­mate, each gross amount is in­de­pen­dent­ly rounded half-up to the nearest kopeck: if the third digit after the decimal point is 5 or greater, the second digit in­creas­es by one. Only after both amounts have been rounded sep­a­rate­ly is the smaller amount sub­tract­ed from the larger one. This is a tech­ni­cal cal­cu­la­tion con­ven­tion; the Civil Pro­ce­dure Code does not es­tab­lish a sep­a­rate round­ing rule of this kind.

Part 10 of Article 141 of the Civil Pro­ce­dure Code does not make this dif­fer­ence au­to­mat­ic. The court may require the party as­signed the larger amount of court costs after al­lo­ca­tion to pay the dif­fer­ence to the other party and release the parties from paying the re­main­der to each other. There­fore, compare the arith­metic result with the op­er­a­tive part of the de­ci­sion.

What to do step by step

Con­sid­er a Kyiv case seeking re­cov­ery of 200 000 UAH, in which the court granted 125 000 UAH. The court rec­og­nized 30 000 UAH in the claimant’s costs and 16 000 UAH in the de­fen­dant’s costs for al­lo­ca­tion.

1. Success share: 125 000 / 200 000 = 0.625, or 62.5%.
2. Re­ject­ed share: 1 - 0.625 = 0.375, or 37.5%.
3. Claimant gross: 30 000 * 0.625 = 18 750.00 UAH.
4. De­fen­dant gross: 16 000 * 0.375 = 6 000.00 UAH.
5. Pos­si­ble dif­fer­ence: 18 750.00 - 6 000.00 = 12 750.00 UAH in the claimant’s favor.

The last amount is an es­ti­mate for check­ing, not an in­de­pen­dent claim created by the cal­cu­la­tor. If the court applies part 10 of Article 141 of the Civil Pro­ce­dure Code, it may award 12 750.00 UAH; if it does not, the court’s sep­a­rate­ly stated al­lo­ca­tion of the gross amounts con­trols.

What to check before filing

First make sure that C is the value of the single mon­e­tary claim being com­pared with A. A re­duc­tion of the claim, partial re­pay­ment of the debt, or a dif­fer­ent amount in the op­er­a­tive part may change the basis, so do not copy the figure from the orig­i­nal claim without check­ing the de­ci­sion.

Then verify P and D. These are the amounts the court allowed for al­lo­ca­tion after as­sess­ing their con­nec­tion to the case, the ev­i­dence, and their jus­ti­fi­ca­tion; they are not nec­es­sar­i­ly all costs claimed by the parties. On the other party’s motion, the court may reduce legal as­sis­tance costs if pro­por­tion­al­i­ty re­quire­ments were not met; the party making that motion must prove the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty. The court also con­sid­ers the parties’ conduct when al­lo­cat­ing costs and may al­lo­cate them dif­fer­ent­ly if there was abuse or the dispute arose from a party’s im­prop­er conduct.

Finally, keep both sep­a­rate­ly rounded in­ter­me­di­ate results. Round­ing the success share early or cal­cu­lat­ing the dif­fer­ence from un­round­ed gross amounts may produce a dif­fer­ent kopeck from the se­quence used by the cal­cu­la­tor.

When to consult a lawyer

For a Kyiv case, legal review is useful if the de­ci­sion does not specify the costs rec­og­nized for each party, the claim value changed, or the op­er­a­tive part does not explain whether the dif­fer­ence under part 10 of Article 141 of the Civil Pro­ce­dure Code was applied. A lawyer can dis­tin­guish an arith­metic error from an issue that needs to be ad­dressed pro­ce­du­ral­ly.

A sep­a­rate as­sess­ment is also needed if the case in­cludes mul­ti­ple claims, a coun­ter­claim, co-parties, or appeal or cas­sa­tion costs. Me­chan­i­cal­ly ap­ply­ing one share in that struc­ture may over­state ex­pect­ed re­im­burse­ment or iden­ti­fy the wrong party as payer.