How legal fees are allocated when a claim is partially granted

When this applies

Parties often see that a claim was granted by 50% or 60% and assume that one com­bined amount of at­tor­ney fees should be divided by the same per­cent­age. In fact, for one mon­e­tary claim there are two sep­a­rate bases: the claimant’s costs allowed by the court for al­lo­ca­tion and the de­fen­dant’s costs de­ter­mined in the same way.

This model applies when a civil case in Lviv has one claim value and one mon­e­tary amount awarded. It does not cover a com­bi­na­tion of mon­e­tary and non-mon­e­tary claims, coun­ter­claims, mul­ti­ple parties, a set­tle­ment, with­draw­al of a claim or ter­mi­na­tion of pro­ceed­ings, or sep­a­rate appeal and cas­sa­tion costs.

Enter both cost bases in the pro­por­tion­al cost al­lo­ca­tion cal­cu­la­tor without man­u­al­ly trans­fer­ring per­cent­ages. The process for sub­stan­ti­at­ing costs and the pro­ce­dur­al dead­line are covered in a sep­a­rate guide and the ev­i­dence dead­line cal­cu­la­tor.

Applicable deadline or procedure

The cal­cu­la­tion uses four values: C is the final value of the single mon­e­tary claim con­sid­ered by the court; A is the granted portion of that claim, ex­clud­ing legal costs; P is the claimant’s costs allowed for al­lo­ca­tion; and D is the de­fen­dant’s cor­re­spond­ing costs.

Cal­cu­late in this order:

1. success = A / C.
2. plaintiff gross = P * A / C.
3. defendant gross = D * (C - A) / C.

The cal­cu­la­tor rounds plaintiff gross and defendant gross sep­a­rate­ly, half-up to the nearest kopeck, then com­pares them. A third decimal digit of 5 or more in­creas­es the second digit by one. This is the cal­cu­la­tor’s tech­ni­cal con­ven­tion, not a round­ing method es­tab­lished by the Civil Pro­ce­dure Code.

If one rounded amount is larger, part 10 of Article 141 of the Civil Pro­ce­dure Code allows the court to require the party as­signed the larger amount of court costs after al­lo­ca­tion to pay the dif­fer­ence and release the parties from paying the re­main­der to each other. The word “may” matters: only the court de­ci­sion creates that oblig­a­tion.

What to do step by step

Suppose a Lviv case in­cludes one claim for 180 000 UAH, and the court awards 90 000 UAH. The court rec­og­nizes 25 000.01 UAH in the claimant’s costs and 14 000.03 UAH in the de­fen­dant’s costs for al­lo­ca­tion.

1. Success share: 90 000 / 180 000 = 0.5, or 50%.
2. The re­ject­ed share is also 50%.
3. Claimant gross before round­ing: 25 000.01 * 0.5 = 12 500.005 UAH; half-up result: 12 500.01 UAH.
4. De­fen­dant gross before round­ing: 14 000.03 * 0.5 = 7 000.015 UAH; half-up result: 7 000.02 UAH.
5. Pos­si­ble dif­fer­ence after both amounts are rounded: 12 500.01 - 7 000.02 = 5 499.99 UAH in the claimant’s favor.

The example de­lib­er­ate­ly in­cludes a third decimal digit to show sep­a­rate round­ing of each pro­por­tion­al amount under the cal­cu­la­tor’s tech­ni­cal con­ven­tion. For these figures, the pos­si­ble dif­fer­ence is 5 499.99 UAH, but it does not become an awarded amount without a cor­re­spond­ing court de­ci­sion.

What to check before filing

Do not start with a per­cent­age quoted in someone’s ex­pla­na­tion. Compare the final claim C with the amount A in the op­er­a­tive part, and do not add court fees, legal as­sis­tance costs, or other court costs to A.

Then check the basis for P and D. The court de­ter­mines these amounts from the ev­i­dence and as­sess­es their con­nec­tion to the case and whether they are jus­ti­fied. On the other party’s motion, legal as­sis­tance costs may be reduced if pro­por­tion­al­i­ty re­quire­ments were not met; the party making the motion must prove the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty. The parties’ conduct, delay, or other abuse may sep­a­rate­ly change the or­di­nary pro­por­tion­al outcome.

Finally, check the limits of the model. If one de­ci­sion ad­dress­es several in­de­pen­dent claims or costs arose at dif­fer­ent stages, a single A / C co­ef­fi­cient may not reflect the legal struc­ture of the case.

When to consult a lawyer

In a Lviv case, a con­sul­ta­tion is useful when the de­ci­sion does not make clear which cost amounts were ac­cept­ed for al­lo­ca­tion, or the parties dis­agree about the final claim value. First es­tab­lish the correct inputs, then check the arith­metic.

Do not rely on this sim­pli­fied result if there is a coun­ter­claim, mul­ti­ple claims or parties, an unusual way of ending the pro­ceed­ings, or costs from several in­stances. A lawyer can sep­a­rate the de­ci­sion into its legal com­po­nents so that a cal­cu­la­tor’s dif­fer­ence does not become an un­sup­port­ed claim.