Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Alabama has no statutory percentage fee for probate attorneys. The 2.5% figure that circulates online is the personal representative’s compensation cap under Ala. Code §43-2-848, not the lawyer’s fee: the court sets attorney compensation under §43-2-682 as reasonable compensation, tested against the Van Schaack factors and reviewable for reasonableness under §43-2-850.
The statute that actually governs attorney’s fees
Alabama’s probate code does not give lawyers a percentage cut of the estate. Under Ala. Code §43-2-682, on any annual, partial, or final settlement made by an administrator or executor, the probate court may fix, determine and allow an attorney’s fee to be paid from the estate to attorneys representing the administrator or executor, for services rendered to the time of settlement. The statute sets no rate, no schedule, and no default percentage; it authorizes the court to approve payment of a fee from estate funds at settlement, leaving the amount to the court’s judgment.
How courts decide what is reasonable in practice
Because §43-2-682 does not define reasonable, Alabama courts import the twelve-factor test for attorney fee reasonableness developed in Van Schaack v. AmSouth Bank, N.A., 530 So.2d 740 (Ala. 1988), which has been applied directly in probate settlements weighing the factors relating to legal counsel compensation. Separately, Ala. Code §43-2-850 gives any interested person a path to challenge the fee after the fact: on petition, the court may review the propriety of employment of any person by a personal representative including any attorney, and the reasonableness of the compensation of any person so employed, and can order a refund of any excess. In practice this means the fee is negotiated or billed hourly, presented to the court at settlement, and can be second-guessed later if a beneficiary objects.
The genuine Alabama trap: two percentage-shaped numbers in the same chapter
Alabama’s own code invites confusion because a real percentage cap sits just a few sections from the attorney-fee statute, only it applies to the personal representative, not the lawyer. Ala. Code §43-2-848 caps ordinary PR compensation at two and one-half percent of the value of property received plus two and one-half percent of disbursements. Because §43-2-848 sits in the same Probate Procedure Act article as §43-2-850’s attorney-fee review provision, and because online estate-cost calculators often quote a flat percentage for probate fees without separating the two roles, a reader can easily walk away thinking Alabama gives attorneys a statutory cut when that number belongs entirely to the personal representative.
The rest of the arithmetic: Alabama 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 Alabama probate filing fee.