A district court impaired driving case that resolves in three settings looks nothing, on the bill, like the same case after four continuances, a suppression hearing, a Department of Licensing hearing, and a jury demand. The difference is not usually decided by the lawyer or by the client. It is decided by the sentence in the fee agreement that says what the quoted number covers and where it stops. Most people sign that document in the first week, when the arrest is still the loudest fact in their life. Reading it slowly is worth an hour.
Flat fee, or a deposit against hourly, and where the money actually sits
Two structures dominate. A flat fee buys a defined stage of the case for a fixed number, and the lawyer keeps it whether the matter takes six hours or sixty. A deposit against hourly is an advance the lawyer draws down at a stated rate, with the unearned balance belonging to the client. Washington's Rules of Professional Conduct treat these differently: a flat fee paid in advance can sit in the lawyer's operating account only if the written agreement says so and includes specific disclosures, while an hourly deposit stays in trust. Check which one you signed, because the sentence naming the account tells you who owns the money today.
The hourly version needs three more numbers before it means anything: the rate, the minimum billing increment, and what happens when the deposit runs out. A six-minute increment and a fifteen-minute increment produce meaningfully different bills on a case with many short phone calls. Look for the replenishment clause, the one requiring a further deposit when the balance drops below some floor. That clause is the mechanism by which a case that drags becomes more expensive, and it is far better understood in week one than in month seven.
What triggers an additional fee
Flat fee agreements are almost always staged, and the staging is where careful reading pays. Common triggers are a contested suppression motion, a jury trial demand, a separate license hearing before the Department of Licensing, an appeal, a probation violation, and a refiling in a different court. Some agreements add a trigger for a case that passes a stated number of court dates or calendar months. Each trigger should name a dollar figure or a formula, not a promise to discuss it later. If the trial fee is blank, the agreement has deferred the single largest financial decision in the case to a moment when you have the least leverage.
Ask, before signing, what the lawyer's own experience says about how often each trigger fires in cases like yours. Nobody can promise an outcome, and no honest answer will be a number that sounds precise. What a good answer does give you is a sense of shape: how many settings a routine negotiated resolution takes in that particular courthouse, and what usually turns a routine case into a contested one. Refusal to guess is fine. Refusal to explain the trigger is not.
Costs that are not fees
Fees pay the lawyer. Costs pay everyone else, and the agreement should say plainly that costs are the client's responsibility, billed as incurred or drawn from a separate cost deposit. In an impaired driving case the realistic list is short but not cheap: an independent toxicologist or breath test expert, a forensic review of maintenance records for the instrument, deposition transcripts, subpoena service, expert witness time for testimony as opposed to consultation, and investigator hours. Court interpreters for hearings are provided at public expense under Washington law, but an interpreter for an office meeting or a defense interview usually is not, and the agreement should say who pays that.
Withdrawal, discharge, and what the refund clause promises
Every agreement has a clause letting the lawyer withdraw, typically for nonpayment or for a breakdown in the relationship, and it should acknowledge that withdrawal after a case is filed requires the court's permission. You can discharge the lawyer at any time, and Washington's rules require flat fee agreements to say so. What follows discharge is the refund question. Language promising a refund of any unearned portion means the lawyer will value the work done and return the rest. Language calling the fee nonrefundable or fully earned on receipt still yields to the rule that a fee must be reasonable, which the Washington State Bar Association oversees through its discipline system.
The practical move is to ask, before signing, how the lawyer would calculate an unearned portion at the arraignment stage, at the motion stage, and the week before trial. A lawyer who answers that in specifics has thought about it, and the answer belongs in the agreement rather than in memory.