It is very expensive to properly prosecute a construction defect claim. It can often take several hundred thousand dollars in engineering and contractor expenses, in order to be able to properly document the claim, and ensure a full recovery. If you hire an attorney on a contingency fee basis, you can expected them to advance all of those expenses for you. You could proceed on an hourly basis. However, you would need to make sure that you had enough money in order to be able to properly document your claim. Otherwise, you would be severely limiting the amount of money that you are capable of recovering.