Posted: April 20, 2026
Rules of Professional Conduct – Comment Period Closes June 4, 2026
RPC01.0. Terminology. AMEND. The proposed amendments to a group of rules (1.0, 1.5, and 1.4) coincide with the new proposed rule 5.8 to address fee sharing between lawyers. These four rules went out for public comment toward the end of 2025. After public comments were received, a few additional proposed amendments were made to the rules including the definition of “referral fees” in 1.0, along with 1.5(a), 5.8(a) and (c), and 5.4(c).
RPC01.5. Fees. AMEND. The proposed amendments to a group of rules (1.0, 1.5, and 1.4) coincide with the new proposed rule 5.8 to address fee sharing between lawyers. These four rules went out for public comment toward the end of 2025. After public comments were received, a few additional proposed amendments were made to the rules including the definition of “referral fees” in 1.0, along with 1.5(a), 5.8(a) and (c), and 5.4(c).
RPC05.4. Professional independence of a lawyer. AMEND. The proposed amendments to a group of rules (1.0, 1.5, and 1.4) coincide with the new proposed rule 5.8 to address fee sharing between lawyers. These four rules went out for public comment toward the end of 2025. After public comments were received, a few additional proposed amendments were made to the rules including the definition of “referral fees” in 1.0, along with 1.5(a), 5.8(a) and (c), and 5.4(c).
RPC05.8. Fee sharing between lawyers. AMEND. The proposed amendments to a group of rules (1.0, 1.5, and 1.4) coincide with the new proposed rule 5.8 to address fee sharing between lawyers. These four rules went out for public comment toward the end of 2025. After public comments were received, a few additional proposed amendments were made to the rules including the definition of “referral fees” in 1.0, along with 1.5(a), 5.8(a) and (c), and 5.4(c).
RPC01.4. Communication. AMEND. The proposed amendment to this rule in subparagraph (a)(1) reflects the correct subparagraph in rule 1.0, along amendments to conform to the rules style guide.
RPC08.4. Misconduct. AMEND. The proposed amendment to this rule adds a new comment [3b] regarding the conditioning of a resolution to a legal dispute upon a promise to withdraw or not file a complaint for misconduct.
You may want to clarify about a circumstance when the attorney wants to share its awarded “fees” with his own non-lawyer client — either as part of a contingency recovery or just because the attorney doesnt want to accept the awarded fees. For example, if the court awards attorney fees on a matter but the attorney doesnt want to keep the fees and wants to give those awarded fees to the non-attorney client. There is no sharing of fees with another non-lawyer party except for the client whom it seems should benefit. There is not a sandbox requirement since it is the client. It seems the rule would inhibit or prevent this. I wonder if simply defining the “nonlawyer” under this rule as excluding the client. Maybe I am missing something but it seems we should clarify.
In the proposed Rule 5.8, the phrase “and the amount of work the lawyer anticipated versus the amount of work the lawyer actually performed” is confusing to me. I suggest striking that phrase. It’s unclear how the amount of work anticipated versus actually performed should factor into the reasonableness of a fee split. Should the lawyer based the fee split on anticipated work, or actual work? If a lawyer anticipated more work and ended up doing less, do they need to return a portion of the fee? Any why would that factor override any of the other factors listed in Rule 1.5(a)? (And isn’t that already taken into consideration in Rule 1.5(a)(1)—“time and labor required”?)
We already have a rule that helps determine if a fee received by a lawyer is reasonable—Rule 1.5(a). To the extent Rule 5.8 concerns itself with the reasonableness of the fee received by each lawyer, it simply needs to incorporate Rule 1.5(a). There is no need to add other factors.