This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.
2026 cost estimates for criminal defense in Montana, including attorney fees, court costs, and other expenses.
As of June 29, 2026, a criminal defense in Montana costs on average $8,550, typically $4,300-$12,800 for a moderate-complexity case, based on sourced attorney-fee and court-cost data. Typical attorney rates run $175 to $355 per hour. A moderate-complexity case typically takes 3-6 months to resolve. Common related costs include court filing fee ($100-$300) and bail bond fee (10% of bail).
Data verified: June 29, 2026
| Complexity | Low | Median | High | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simple | $1,750 | $3,050 | $4,300 | 1-3 months |
| Moderate | $4,300 | $8,550 | $12,800 | 3-6 months |
| Complex | $13,100 | $26,200 | $43,600 | 6-12+ months |
Last verified: June 2026
$175 – $355/ hour
Median: $265/hr
3-6 months
For moderate complexity cases
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</script>Criminal defense costs form primarily around charge severity and how the case resolves. A misdemeanor that ends in a straightforward plea negotiation is the least expensive scenario and is often billed as a flat fee, since the attorney can reasonably predict the hours involved. A felony charge, multiple counts, or a case that proceeds to trial multiplies the work substantially — pretrial motions, evidence review, witness preparation, and the trial itself — which is why most complex criminal defense engagements move to hourly billing or a large retainer with hourly drawdown.
Court-appointed public defenders are available at no direct cost to defendants who qualify financially, which is why the figures on this page reflect private attorney costs specifically. Private representation typically offers more attorney time per case and can be worth it for serious charges, but the actual price a defendant pays scales directly with case complexity and whether the matter is resolved pretrial or goes to trial.
Take a moderate-complexity criminal defense matter in Montana. The recorded median total is $8,550, with reported quotes clustering between $4,300 and $12,800. Each statutory line below is sized against that median.
Added together the itemised lines come to $1,600–$7,300, which leaves roughly $1,250–$6,950 of the Montana median as professional time — the part that differs between quotes. One further recorded fee is not itemised above and is not in that total.
At $8,550, the median criminal defense cost in Montana runs 14% below the $9,905 national average across all 50 states and DC.
Montana carries 3 rows — simple, $1,750–$4,300 at $135–$265/hr over 1-3 months; moderate, $4,300–$12,800 at $175–$355/hr over 3-6 months; complex, $13,100–$43,600 at $265–$445/hr over 6-12+ months — on 3 shared citations. Those figures place it in the lower quarter of the table.
$8,550 is a median, not the middle of the band — $4,250 above the $4,300 floor, $4,250 under the $12,800 ceiling. Every rank below is out of 51.
Sorted by median cost, Montana is 38th of 51 for a criminal defense, placing it in the lowest-cost quarter of the table: $1,650 and 16% below the $10,200 midpoint, with 13 states recording a lower median still.
North Carolina ($8,600) and North Dakota ($8,550) bracket Montana inside a $50 window — narrow enough that 38th is close to arbitrary.
5 tracked states — South Carolina, Iowa, North Carolina, North Dakota among them — record a median within three percent of Montana's $8,550. The figure sits in the densest part of the criminal defense distribution, where a rank change of several rows costs only a few hundred dollars.
The two measures nearly agree: 36th of 51 on hourly rate at $265 an hour, 38th on total cost, 2 places apart.
| Rank | State | Median | Against Montana |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | Ohio | $9,050 | +$500 |
| 33 | West Virginia | $9,000 | +$450 |
| 34 | Missouri | $8,950 | +$400 |
| 35 | South Carolina | $8,700 | +$150 |
| 36 | Iowa | $8,650 | +$100 |
| 37 | North Carolina | $8,600 | +$50 |
| 38 | Montana | $8,550 | — |
| 39 | North Dakota | $8,550 | −$0 |
| 40 | Tennessee | $8,500 | −$50 |
| 41 | Louisiana | $8,250 | −$300 |
| 42 | Nebraska | $8,250 | −$300 |
| 43 | Idaho | $8,200 | −$350 |
| 44 | Kansas | $8,150 | −$400 |
The 38th position is not a stable fact about Montana: $50 up or $0 down moves Montana a row, and a ten percent revision in either direction would cross 15 rows, 8 above and 7 below in near-equal numbers.
Climbing five places would mean passing West Virginia, Missouri, South Carolina, Iowa, North Carolina and adding $450 to the $8,550 recorded here.
Five places down means passing under North Dakota, Tennessee, Louisiana, Nebraska, Idaho: $350.
$4,800 short of Hawaii ($13,350), $1,950 clear of Alabama ($6,600).
The $8,550 median divided by the $265 median rate implies roughly 32 billable hours. The peer median is 34 hours: Montana reaches its total in 2 fewer implied hours, because the rate rather than the workload carries more of it.
The 8.6x step from the simple to the complex tier breaks down as 4.9x the hours against 1.78x the rate — 15 hours at $200 becomes 74 hours at $355. Hours dominate, but the rate contribution is large enough to notice.
The Montana moderate band spans $4,300 to $12,800 — $8,500 — which is $1,700 narrower than the peer-median band of $10,200, so quoted criminal defense figures cluster more tightly here than in most tracked states. End to end that is 32 hours at $265.
Across the 3-6 months the sources record for a moderate matter, the $8,550 median is roughly $1,900 a month of elapsed time.
Ranked by implied hours rather than money, Montana is 36th of 51 at 32 hours, where cost and rate also put it.
69% up the $4,300–$12,800 band sits the $10,200 table midpoint, buying 38 hours at $265 against the 32 the local criminal defense median implies — 6 hours apart.
| Measure | Montana | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Moderate median | $8,550 | 38th |
| Hourly median | $265 | 36th |
| Implied hours | 32 | 36th |
| Simple median | $3,050 | 39th |
| Complex median | $26,200 | 34th |
$265 an hour puts Montana between Missouri ($265) and Tennessee ($265) — not the criminal defense cost pairing.
5 other states record exactly $265 — Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri among them — so rate is a coarse instrument in this criminal defense table.
$8,550 buys 43 hours at $200, 32 at $265, 24 at $355.
| Rank | State | Median rate |
|---|---|---|
| 34 | Iowa | $265 |
| 35 | Missouri | $265 |
| 36 | Montana | $265 |
| 37 | Tennessee | $265 |
| 38 | Kansas | $250 |
Montana moves up the table as complexity rises: 39th at the simple tier, 38th at moderate, 34th at complex, a 5-place climb. The state's position on the headline moderate figure understates where it sits once a matter is contested.
$3,050 is 39th of 51 on a straightforward criminal defense, under Indiana ($3,050) and over New Mexico ($3,050), $350 under the $3,400 tier midpoint.
$26,200 is 34th of 51 once contested, between Missouri ($26,350) and Ohio ($25,500), $3,700 off the $29,900 tier midpoint.
The lower two bands run into each other — the simple tier tops out at $4,300 against a moderate floor of $4,300 — but there is a clear gap of $300 between the moderate ceiling of $12,800 and the complex floor of $13,100. In Montana the jump into contested work is a step, not a slope.
| Tier | Montana | Rank | Tier midpoint | Implied hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| simple | $3,050 | 39th | $3,400 | 15 |
| moderate | $8,550 | 38th | $10,200 | 32 |
| complex | $26,200 | 34th | $29,900 | 74 |
$3,050 drops Montana to 39th of 51 on straightforward matters, 1 below its moderate position and $350 (10%) under the $3,400 tier midpoint.
15 implied hours at $200: 47% of the moderate tier's 32, over 1-3 months.
Indiana ($3,050) and New Mexico ($3,050) bracket it — a $0 window.
4 states sit within three percent of the $3,050 here, against 5 at the moderate row.
$26,200 puts Montana 34th of 51 on contested matters, 4 up on its moderate position, and $3,700 (12%) under the $29,900 tier midpoint.
74 implied hours at $355: 231% of the moderate tier's 32, over 6-12+ months.
Missouri ($26,350) and Ohio ($25,500) bracket it — a $850 window.
4 states sit within three percent of the $26,200 here, against 5 at the moderate row.
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 37 | Tennessee | $3,150 |
| 38 | Indiana | $3,050 |
| 39 | Montana | $3,050 |
| 40 | New Mexico | $3,050 |
| 41 | South Carolina | $3,000 |
| Rank | State | Median |
|---|---|---|
| 32 | Iowa | $26,800 |
| 33 | Missouri | $26,350 |
| 34 | Montana | $26,200 |
| 35 | Ohio | $25,500 |
| 36 | Nebraska | $25,200 |
Against the other matter types tracked in Montana, a criminal defense carries the largest median of the 8 at $8,550 — ahead of Divorce, the next line down.
The state does not rank uniformly. Montana is 27th of 51 for Immigration but 42nd for Divorce, a 15-place spread across the matter types tracked here, so its 38th on criminal defense says little about what the other lines cost.
Montana is not equally priced in every practice area. Measured against each matter's own midpoint, DUI / DWI runs 4% below its own midpoint while Personal Injury runs 19% below its own midpoint — a 15-point spread between the extremes.
The largest tracked median in Montana is 5x the smallest, effectively the 5.1x that the typical state records: the internal spread is ordinary even where the levels are not.
0 of 5 matter types rank Montana in the upper third, 2 in the lower, 3 between; criminal defense is 38th.
In percentile terms it sits at the 26th percentile of the 51 tracked states.
| Matter | Simple | Moderate | Complex | Hours | Rank | vs mid | Above |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Criminal Defense | $3,050 | $8,550 | $26,200 | 32 | 38th | −16% | North Carolina |
| Divorce | $2,750 | $7,350 | $20,350 | 28 | 42nd | −14% | Tennessee |
| DUI / DWI | $2,800 | $7,150 | $13,700 | 29 | 30th | −4% | Florida |
| Immigration | $1,800 | $4,500 | $9,300 | 18 | 27th | −5% | Tennessee |
| Personal Injury | $1,200 | $4,200 | $13,000 | — | — | −19% | — |
| Bankruptcy | $1,300 | $3,350 | $4,500 | 15 | — | −7% | — |
| Real Estate Closing | $800 | $1,950 | $3,600 | 9 | 30th | −12% | Florida |
| Estate Planning / Probate | $500 | $1,700 | $5,600 | 7 | — | −18% | — |
Simple tier. $3,050 ÷ $200 = about 15 hours, spread over 1-3 months at roughly $1,525 a month. The $5,500 step to the moderate tier is 17 more hours at that rate.
Work against price. $8,550 to $26,200 is a $17,650 step, mostly work: 42 more hours at $265 is $11,130, while moving to $355 across 74 hours adds $6,660. Work carries 63%.
Borrowing the wrong row. North Dakota ($8,550) is $0 light, North Carolina ($8,600) is $50 heavy — but the $10,200 table midpoint is out by $1,650, 33x the neighbour error.
Both ends, in time. $4,300 is 16 hours at $265; $12,800 is 48. Over the 3-6 months recorded for a moderate criminal defense, that is 4 to 11 hours a month — the difference between an occasional file review and continuous work.
Contested against simple. At Montana's own recorded figures, $26,200 buys 8.6 matters at the $3,050 simple median — or, counted in time, 74 implied hours against 15, a factor of 4.9 — the two ratios differing because the rate rises with the tier.
Verified June 2026. Filing fees change on the Montanacourt's own schedule; billing models are covered in the legal fees guide.
This tool provides general cost estimates for informational purposes only. It is NOT legal advice. Costs vary significantly based on individual circumstances. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for specific guidance.