A high-profile court battle over an allegedly “unconscionable” contingent legal fee agreement has taken a strange turn following the death of the client who was to have paid the fee.

Alice Lawrence, who died Feb. 16 at the age of 83, sued her former lawyers at the New York firm of Graubard Miller over a 40-percent contingent fee agreement executed in January 2005, only a few months before the settlement of a mammoth estate case for $105 million.