Percentage Fee Funding
Public Service lawyer referral programs are increasingly utilizing percentage fees as a means of providing funding to support access to quality legal services. These clearinghouse materials provide an overview of the status of this funding mechanism by state and an introduction to this issue. Numerous states, in addition to the American Bar Association, have either issued an ethics opinion on this topic or specifically noted the ability of public service lawyer referral programs to utilize this mechanism through bar rules.
Materials are also provided to assist your program in developing a percentage fee program for your public service lawyer referral program. Critical to this process is a system for collection of the fees.
An issue to clarify fee sharing for bankruptcy cases was resolved in 2005.