Co-Counsel and Referring Attorney Fees on a Settlement
How to split an attorney fee with co-counsel or a referring attorney on a contingent matter, and where that split shows up on the settlement statement versus in LeanLaw's own records.
Setting Up a Fee Recipient
Co-counsel and referring attorneys are added on the matter itself, not inside the Settlement Wizard.
- Open the matter and go to its Fee Recipients tab (only appears on contingent, Matter Accounting matters)
- Click + Add Recipient
- Fill in:
- Name — select an existing QuickBooks Online vendor from the dropdown, or create a new one inline
- Role — Co-Counsel or Referring Attorney. Referring Attorney rows hide the Expenses field entirely; referring attorneys aren't tracked for expense reimbursement.
- Fee % — the recipient's share of the attorney fee (not of the total recovery, and not a flat dollar amount). Must be greater than 0%, and every recipient's percentage combined cannot exceed 100%. Your firm's row shows the remainder automatically.
- Expenses (Co-Counsel only) — that firm's own case expenses on the matter, for reference and disbursement. This must be updated on step 2 of the settlement caclulator.
- You can add up to 5 outside recipients per settlement.
Note: Each recipient must be mapped to a QuickBooks Online Vendor before you can push their disbursement — map this on the Fee Recipients tab, or from the Settlement Disbursements table when you're ready to pay them.
How the Split Works
- Co-counsel and referring attorney fees are entered as a percentage of the overall attorney fee — not a percentage of the total recovery, and not a flat dollar amount.
- If co-counsel or the referring attorney has their own expenses recorded on the matter, those expenses count toward the net-of-expenses calculation the same as any other case expense.
- Rounding with multiple attorneys: when the fee is split across more than one co-counsel or referring attorney (up to 5), each of their shares is rounded down to the nearest cent individually. The combined leftover from all those floors is added to the primary firm's portion — so the split across every attorney always sums to exactly the total fee, and the client is never overcharged.
Two Different Views of the Same Fee
This is the part that generates the most confusion — the client-facing statement and LeanLaw's own fee record show the co-counsel amount differently, on purpose:
| Where | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Settlement Statement (client-facing PDF) | Co-counsel / referring attorney fees appear as indented sub-lines under the Contingency Fee line, inside the same Attorney Fee section — not a separate section. If co-counsel has their own expenses on the matter, those show the same way, as a sub-line under Total Case Costs in the Expenses section. |
| In LeanLaw (and QuickBooks) | The fixed fee record created for the primary firm is already reduced by the co-counsel/referring amount — that fee only represents money actually going to the primary firm. |
In other words: the client sees the full fee broken into a total plus a labeled breakdown of who gets what; LeanLaw's own books only ever record the primary firm's net share as "the fee."
What This Doesn't Cover
- Co-counsel/referring attorney fees cannot be itemized separately for sales tax — see Settlement Calculator: Known Limitations and FAQ.
- The Contingency Analytics Dashboard's Avg Fee Recovery % metric does not currently adjust for co-counsel or referring attorney deductions — see Using the Contingency Analytics Dashboard.
- Paying co-counsel or a referring attorney is done from the same disbursement table as the attorney fee, liens, and the client's net proceeds — see Settlement Disbursements.