Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Louisiana’s often-quoted 2.5% figure comes from Code of Civil Procedure article 3351, and it is the succession representative’s own default commission, not a fee schedule for the attorney. The lawyer’s fee is governed by the reasonableness standard in Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5, and a 2021 Louisiana State Bar Association ethics opinion confirms attorneys may lawfully bill a percentage too, but that is a permitted billing method, not a Succession Code mandate.
Article 3351’s 2.5% is the representative’s commission, not the lawyer’s fee
Article 3351 provides that an executor or administrator, absent a testament provision or agreement, is allowed a sum equal to two and one-half percent of the amount of the inventory as compensation for administering the succession, and the court may increase that commission on a proper showing that it is inadequate. Nothing in the article addresses what the succession’s attorney is paid.
Article 3351.1 is the provision that actually mentions attorneys
Article 3351.1 provides that when a succession representative also serves as the attorney for the succession or the representative, the representative shall not receive compensation both as succession representative and as attorney; the representative’s compensation is instead reduced by whatever was paid for attorney duties, a limit waivable only by written approval of heirs and legatees owning a two-thirds interest, with any resulting compensation still requiring court approval.
The closest thing to an attorney percentage is bar guidance, not a statute
Louisiana State Bar Association Public Opinion 21-RPCC-22 addresses a lawyer’s use of percentage-based fees when representing a succession representative, concluding that charging a fee expressed as a percentage of estate value, commonly mirroring the statutory representative rate, is not a per se ethics violation under Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5 so long as the fee is reasonable and disclosed. That is bar guidance on a permissible billing method, not a Succession Code schedule, so it does not create a second statutory percentage the way Florida’s or Nevada’s attorney-fee statutes do.
The rest of the arithmetic: Louisiana probate cost.
How the fee models compare across all 51 jurisdictions: probate cost by state, and the national picture on what a probate attorney costs.
Statutory text read at each state’s own legislature or official code publisher. General information, not legal advice; fee statutes change and a court retains the final say on what is reasonable.
The attorney fee above is separate from what the court itself charges just to open the case, see the Louisiana probate filing fee.