Attorney Fee Deferral
As a trial lawyer, you can strategically plan for your contingency fees around taxes, life’s milestones, and retirement goals.
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.