Tuesday, February 18, 2003Utah Bar: Paralegals Can Receive a Cut of Fees. Ernie pointed out this interesting November 1, 2002 article in the ABA Journal eReport, regarding Utah State Bar Ethics Advisory Committee Opinion No. 02-07, which holds that in certain situations Utah lawyers can pay paralegals a fixed percentage of fees. This applies to employee-paralegals, however, and not to paralegals working on an independent-contractor basis, who may only be compensated on a "per task" basis, "totally independent from the lawyer’s relationship with, and compensation from, the client." In this situation, the independent-contractor paralegal is treated like any other third-party vendor of services, such as an expert witness, who is paid for work done, independent of the outcome of the case. The underlying rationale is the “protect[ion of] the lawyer’s professional independence of judgment.”
Conversely, because the employee-paralegal is presumed not to be in a position to exert undue influence on the lawyer, fee-sharing is allowed, based upon a percentage of gross or net income provided and not tied to specific cases. In other words, a paralegal may be compensated a fixed percentage of gross income from all cases, but not a fixed percentage based upon the outcome of a specific case.This doesn't seem to be all that different from Lousiana law. In Louisiana, Rule 5.4 of the Rules of Professional Conduct provides, among other things, that a lawyer "may include nonlawyer employees in a compensation or retirement plan, even though the plan is based in whole or in part on a profit-sharing practice of law." I'll have to search the Louisiana Supreme Court Opinions and report back. I've got to get to work. (To be continued and/or updated.)
6:16:00 AM 
