Sample Attorney Fee Petition in Illinois: Contents, Deadlines, and Proof

An attorney fee petition in Illinois state court is governed by Illinois Supreme Court Rule 300, which took effect July 1, 2025. At minimum, your petition must include a summary of the services performed, a copy of the relevant portions of the written fee agreement, and enough detail for the court to determine the reasonable value of the work. Itemized time entries are required only in three specific situations, and the filing deadline depends on the underlying statute or court order rather than on Rule 300 itself.¹

What Every Petition Must Contain

Rule 300 sets a consistent baseline across Illinois state courts. Before it took effect in July 2025, requirements varied by courthouse. Now every petition, regardless of the underlying claim, must include two core elements:

A summary of the attorney’s services and the fee agreement between attorney and client, with enough information for the court to determine the reasonable value of those services.
The relevant portions of any written fee agreement, attached to the petition.¹

On top of that, your petition has to satisfy any additional requirements the underlying statute or case law imposes. Family law petitions under 750 ILCS 5/508 are a clear example: interim fee petitions must include an affidavit explaining the factual basis for the request, and final fee petitions require a copy of the written engagement agreement between the attorney and the client.² Always read Rule 300 in tandem with the statute that gives you the right to fees in the first place.

When You Must Include Itemized Time Entries

One of the practical shifts under Rule 300 is that itemized, time-based billing entries are not always required. You need them only in three situations:

The fee agreement was based in whole or part on an hourly rate.
You are seeking to shift more than what the client’s fee agreement provides, and the amount isn’t otherwise fixed by statute or court order.
The attorney had a contingency fee agreement with the client but is seeking fee-shifting from the opposing party calculated on an hourly basis.¹

If none of those triggers apply, a flat-fee arrangement can be presented as a flat fee. An attorney who charged a $5,000 flat fee does not have to generate time entries after the fact to justify petitioning for that amount. If any trigger does apply, however, your time entries need to describe the work in enough detail that the court can test it for reasonableness.

Supporting Documentation That Protects the Award

Even when Rule 300 does not technically require time entries, contemporaneous billing records make the difference between an award that holds up and one that gets slashed. In Kaiser v. MEPC American Properties, Inc., an Illinois appellate court denied a firm’s fee request after it emerged that the firm had destroyed its contemporaneous time records. The court held that even when a contract obligates one party to pay fees, the party seeking payment still carries the burden of proving the amount is reasonable.³

Keep the records contemporaneous. Reconstructed summaries invite challenge. If your billing records show duplicated work by multiple attorneys on the same task, as happened in Kaiser, expect the opposing party to seize on it and the court to listen.⁴

How Courts Decide What Is Reasonable

Understanding what the court is looking for shapes what you put in the petition. Illinois courts generally start with the lodestar: the number of hours reasonably spent multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate. If the court concludes the attorney spent 40 hours on something that should have taken 20, or charged $500 an hour in a market where $350 is standard, the award drops accordingly. The lodestar can be adjusted up or down based on the quality of the work, the risk the attorney took on, and the results achieved.

Layered on top of the lodestar are the eight reasonableness factors in Illinois Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5: the time and labor required; the novelty and difficulty of the issues; the skill required to perform the legal service properly; the fee customarily charged in the locality for similar work; the amount involved and results obtained; any time limitations imposed by the client or the circumstances; the nature and length of the attorney-client relationship; and whether the fee was fixed or contingent.⁵

Kaiser added a few more things trial courts look at: the skill and standing of the attorneys, the nature and difficulty of the case, the benefit to the client, and whether the fees bear a reasonable connection to the amount at stake in the litigation.³ Build your petition’s narrative around these factors. Don’t just list hours; explain why the hours were needed, why the rates match the local market, and why the result justified the investment.

Deadlines for Filing

Rule 300 itself does not set a filing deadline. Timing comes from the underlying statute, applicable court rules, or orders in your particular case.¹ In a divorce under 750 ILCS 5/508, interim fee petitions can be filed during the case, while final fee disputes follow their own schedule tied to the conclusion of the proceeding.²

Do not assume you can wait indefinitely. Check the specific statute authorizing the fee award and any case management orders for deadlines.

If Your Case Is in Federal Court

Rule 300 does not apply in federal court. Federal fee petitions in Illinois follow Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d)(2), and the deadline is strict: a motion for attorney fees must be filed no later than 14 days after the entry of judgment, unless a statute or court order says otherwise.⁶ Miss that window and you can forfeit the fees even when the underlying statute clearly entitles you to them.

A federal motion must identify the judgment, specify the statute or rule entitling you to fees, and state the amount sought or provide a fair estimate. The court may also order disclosure of the terms of your fee agreement.⁶ The substantive reasonableness analysis mirrors what state courts do, but the procedural wrapper and the deadline are different.

Pro Bono Representation

Rule 300 explicitly allows an attorney who represented a client on a pro bono basis to petition for and recover fees under fee-shifting provisions.¹ The fact that the client paid nothing out of pocket does not disqualify the attorney from collecting fees from the losing side when a statute authorizes it. The petition still has to meet the same Rule 300 requirements as any other.

Risks of Overreaching

Inflating a petition carries real exposure. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 137 provides that by signing any pleading or motion, an attorney certifies that the filing is well-grounded in fact, warranted by existing law, and not filed for an improper purpose such as harassment or unnecessary delay. A fee petition that violates these standards can draw sanctions, including an order to pay the opposing party’s reasonable expenses and attorney fees incurred in responding to the frivolous filing.⁷

A motion for Rule 137 sanctions must be filed within 30 days of the entry of final judgment, or within 30 days of the ruling on a timely post-judgment motion. When a court imposes sanctions, it must explain the reasons in writing, either in the judgment order itself or in a separate order.⁷

In federal court, the equivalent mechanism is Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, which imposes similar certification requirements and limits sanctions to what is needed to deter the conduct. Rule 11 includes a 21-day safe harbor: if you withdraw or correct the problematic filing within 21 days of being served with the sanctions motion, the motion cannot be presented to the court.⁸

Putting the Petition Together

A clean Rule 300 petition in state court generally reads in this order: a short statement identifying the statutory, contractual, or rule-based authority for fee-shifting; a narrative summary of the services performed and the result achieved; the fee agreement (or relevant portions) as an attached exhibit; itemized time entries if any of the three triggers applies, with enough description for the court to evaluate each entry; a reasonableness analysis addressing the Rule 1.5 factors and, where relevant, the Kaiser factors; and the specific dollar amount requested. Trial courts have broad discretion in setting the final figure, and appellate courts rarely disturb that discretion, so the trial court record is where the petition has to carry its own weight.

1
Supreme Court of Illinois. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 300 – Attorney Fee Petitions
2
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 750 ILCS 5/508 – Attorney’s Fees; Client’s Rights and Responsibilities Respecting Fees and Costs
3
CaseMine. Kaiser v. MEPC American Properties, Inc.
4
vLex. Kaiser v. MEPC American Properties, Inc.
5
Supreme Court of Illinois. Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct of 2010 Rule 1.5 – Fees
6
Legal Information Institute. Rule 54 – Judgment; Costs
7
Supreme Court of Illinois. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 137 – Signing of Pleadings, Motions and Other Documents – Sanctions
8
Legal Information Institute. Rule 11 – Signing Pleadings, Motions, and Other Papers; Representations to the Court; Sanctions