Bitlaw

37 CFR 10.48
Sharing legal fees.

This document contains one section of Chapter 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations. This page was last updated in November, 2005. You may return to the main 37 CFR Index, or to the index for one of the follow parts:

part 1 (patents);
part 2 (trademarks);
part 3 (assignments);
part 10 (representation); or
part 200+ (copyrights).

Previous Section (§10.47) | Next Section (§10.49)

§10.48 Sharing legal fees.

A practitioner or a firm of practitioners shall not share legal fees with a non-practitioner except that:

(a)

An agreement by a practitioner with the practitioner's firm, partner, or associate may provide for the payment of money, over a reasonable period of time after the practitioner's death, to the practitioner's estate or to one or more specified persons.

(b)

A practitioner who undertakes to complete unfinished legal business of a deceased practitioner may pay to the estate of the deceased practitioner that proportion of the total compensation which fairly represents the services rendered by the deceased practitioner.

(c)

A practitioner or firm of practitioners may include non-practitioner employees in a compensation or retirement plan, even though the plan is based in whole or in part on a profit-sharing arrangement, providing such plan does not circumvent another Disciplinary Rule.