Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Mississippi’s current code sets no percentage for the executor or the attorney. Section 91-7-281 lets an executor get credit for reasonable sums paid to an attorney, and section 91-7-299 separately authorizes a reasonable attorney’s fee as an estate expense; this research did not find any currently operative percentage-based attorney fee statute, despite the topic’s reputation for one.
Section 91-7-281: credit for reasonable sums, not a percentage
Section 91-7-281 entitles an executor, administrator, or guardian to credit in annual and final settlements for reasonable sums paid for the services of an attorney in managing or acting on behalf of the estate, provided the court finds the services proper and rendered in good faith. The same section adds that when the executor also acts as the attorney, the court may allow reasonable compensation as attorney in lieu of the fiduciary’s own compensation, rather than both.
Section 91-7-299 folds the attorney’s fee into the executor’s own settlement
Section 91-7-299 lets the court allow an executor or administrator, in partial or final settlements, such sum as the court deems proper as compensation for their trouble, considering the value of the estate and the difficulty of the duties discharged, and separately allows the executor or administrator’s necessary expenses, including a reasonable attorney’s fee, to be assessed out of the estate in an amount the court determines.
No evidence found of a currently operative Mississippi percentage rule
Both Mississippi statutes actually governing attorney’s fees in estate administration use reasonableness language with no percentage figure anywhere in either provision. Families researching a Mississippi estate should treat any percentage number quoted for an executor’s or an attorney’s fee as a market estimate or local custom, not as current statutory law.
The rest of the arithmetic: Mississippi 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 Mississippi probate filing fee.