Trial lawyers paid by contingency fee now have a plethora of attorney fee deferral options to plan for their future or the business needs of their law firm. Attorney fee deferral solutions are available for everyone from a solo practitioner to firms with large numbers of partners and/or associates and complicated partnership agreements.

In a well-received one-hour interactive session,which took place at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Settlement Planners in Broomfield Colorado on March 1, 2008, 4structures.com LLC President John Darer moderated a distinguished panel that included John Meaney of Pacific Life Insurance Company, Lynne P. Martel of Havelet Assignment Company and David Marshall of Juris Prudent LLC. The panelits were representatives of an annuity provider, a non-qualified assignment company with fixed and market-based options and a deferred compensation solution provider respectively. During the session, John Darer asked the panelists to suggest how they would address attorney fee deferral solutions for lawyers in conjunction with the hypothetical facts in 4 interactive case studies.

The tossed salad metaphor was intended to suggest that when it comes to your clients, some needs are not readily apparent. So you must turn over the top leaves and maybe the ones below them to fully appreciate the situation and their needs. The best "tastiest" solutions may lie below the surface.

For structured attorney fees, attorney fee deferred compensation and non qualified structured settlements in general, the idea works because attorney’s fee can be invested on a pre-tax basis, meaning a larger capital base than would otherwise be the case, resulting in a higher post-tax sum ultimately received by the attorney, law firm or payee.

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