Attorney Fee Deferral
As a trial lawyer, you can strategically plan for your contingency fees around taxes, life’s milestones, and retirement goals.
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Defer your fees. Plan for taxes.
Through fee deferral, you can receive your contingency fees as payments over time in a tailored schedule. Also called attorney fee structure, fee deferral is a smart investment option to manage wealth and plan for cash flow.
How will fee deferral affect my taxes?
Structuring an attorney fee breaks up a large lump sum into a schedule of payments over time. Attorneys who structure their fees only have to pay taxes on the payments they receive in a given year.
How do I get started deferring my fees?
To defer a fee, you must not have constructive receipt of the money. As part of the settlement with the defendants and/or their insurers, your contingency fee must be a term of settlement that allows you to create a periodic payment obligation and defer some or all of your fee. The defendants/insurers would issue your fee payable to the selected assignment company. If a 468b qualified settlement fund (QSF) is established, your contingency fee must be a term of settlement that allows your fees to be payable into the QSF, which would then issue your deferred fee to the selected assignment company.
What type of fees can I defer?
Attorneys can defer any contingency fee from a physical or non-physical injury tort settlement.
If I worked on the case with another attorney, am I still eligible to defer my fee?
You can structure your fees even if you worked on a case with another attorney. Each attorney can decide whether to receive their portion of the fee in a lump sum or to defer into a unique payment schedule.
