Structured legal fees, too good of a deal? Some think so.

In this week's edition of Speaking of Settlements I am joined by noted tax law expert, Attorney Rob Wood of the firm Wood & Porter. I asked Rob to come in and discuss a recent article by two university professors who have decided to create an intellectual argument that structured legal fees are "too good of a deal" for trial lawyers.

They published in Tax Notes just last week on June 2, 2009 a critique of the reasoning  in the long settled Child's case, indicating that the trial lawyers have gotten too good of a deal and that in the interest of creating a more fair tax burden that this ability to structure income over time should be curtailed.

As you'll hear in this broadcast, the actual risk of a legislative reversal of Child's is pretty low, but the fact that there are academics out there looking at this as an equity issue in taxation indicates that we need to be both vigilant in making the case for the fairness of structured legal fees, but also promote them more heavily as the great deal that they are.

Comments

[Tax Lawyer]

You shouldn't worry. Johnson and Plodsky are not known outside of academia and not terribly well respected by the Service.

[The Settlement Channel]

Thanks for sharing that. You would know better then I about their status, but I did find it semi-amusing how they made such a good case for what a great deal this is for attorneys. I wish more lawyers would wake up to the planning tool they have sitting under their noses.