DALLAS — If you are a wrongly convicted inmate in Texas and are exonerated, you stand to receive a very rewarding apology from the state.

Steven C. Phillips, 53, who was proved innocent of rape by DNA tests in 2008 after serving nearly 25 years, got a $2 million lump-sum payment, with substantial annual payments to come.

But then came a legal bill: $1,024,166.67.

The tab did not come from the lawyer who helped free him. Instead, it came from the lawyer he hired afterward to sue the City of Dallas and the state for his wrongful imprisonment, with an agreed contingency fee of 25 percent of any award.

But no suit was filed on Mr. Phillips’s behalf. Instead, the lawyer, Kevin Glasheen, lobbied the Legislature to pass a bill that in 2009 increased the payout to exonerated prisoners. What had been a simple payment of $50,000 for every year served became $80,000 for every year behind bars; the bill also called for paying freed inmates an additional $80,000 a year. Those who had been exonerated still had the option of suing, but the richer terms for settling outright significantly shifted the balance of the decision.