Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: South Dakota’s attorney fees are tested for reasonableness under SDCL §29A-3-721, by name. A separate fallback percentage schedule in §29A-3-719 exists only for the personal representative, and only when no will-based compensation was set.
SDCL section 29A-3-721: attorney fees named and reviewed for reasonableness
South Dakota’s statute governing review of estate compensation explicitly names the attorney: any interested person can ask the court to review the propriety of employing an attorney, accountant, investment advisor, or other specialized agent, and to test the reasonableness of what that person was paid, separately from testing the personal representative’s own compensation. There is no percentage anywhere in this section.
The personal representative’s fallback percentage that gets misapplied to the lawyer
SDCL §29A-3-719 starts from the same reasonable-compensation, multi-factor standard used for everyone, but adds a fallback commission schedule, 5% of the first $1,000 of personal property, 4% of the next up to $5,000, and 2.5% above that, which applies only to the personal representative and only when no will provision or contract fixed compensation another way. Real property compensation under the same section is left entirely to the court’s determination.
The dollar breakpoints are decades out of date
Because South Dakota’s fallback percentage schedule still uses $1,000 and $5,000 breakpoints, it produces a trivial commission on any modern estate, meaning South Dakota executors in practice almost always fall back on the reasonable-compensation factor test rather than the schedule. In effect, neither the personal representative nor the attorney is really paid by percentage in South Dakota today, even though the old schedule remains on the books.
The rest of the arithmetic: South Dakota 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 South Dakota probate filing fee.