Call me old fashioned but if you were in NV I wouldn't charge you to meet for an initial consultation (as long as it's of reasonable length... say an hour). You should come to the meeting with enough information to give your lawyer a good understanding of what's going on. CC&Rs, correspondence, pictures, etc. If there are "bad" facts (i.e. stuff you may have done wrong), your lawyer absolutely needs to know about them from the outset.
Lawyers that specialize in this field are unlikely to work on a contingency. You will probably be expected to pay as you go, and you should expect to come up with a significant retainer to get started (say $5-10K). Your hourly billings would be debited against the retainer and you'd be asked to replenish the retainer as it gets low. If the case is settled before all of your retainer is gone, you should get the balance back. Not sure what a reasonable estimate is to get a case to trial in your neck of the woods, but I'd think $25K would be very cheap and $50K+ would be more like it. That's just for your fees and costs, not the HOA's.
Full-blown litigation with an HOA can be pretty risky. It's not uncommon for CC&Rs to have a provision that says that the HOA can charge its legal costs as dues against you (with accompanying lien rights) in the event that the HOA prevails. So you could end up paying everyone's legal bills. Knowing all of that, a good lawyer should point out that it may make more sense to move than to fight if you can't win cheaply and early.
Sorry, way more than you asked, I know.
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