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The Dallas County Probate Courts' fee-petition guidelines (revised Spring 2025, applying to all billing on or after June 1, 2025): the experience-banded attorney rate table (up to $250–$600/hour with board-certification gates at the top), outside-attorney supporting-affidavit thresholds at $1,000 and $5,000, ad litem compensation ($150/hour county-pay; $600 typical solvent-estate fee), dual-compensation disclosure rules for attorney-fiduciaries, the paralegal rate table with the single $25 enhancement, tenth-hour billing, travel and research reimbursement limits, the $.15 copy cap, application content requirements including the no-block-billing rule, personal responsibility for misfeasance costs, and the file-as-application-not-claim rule with its mandatory-hearing consequence.
Texas > Dallas County > the Statutory Probate Courts of Dallas County — the guidelines speak for "The Probate Courts of Dallas County" collectively; the current posting is hosted on Probate Court No. 1's page; applies to all billing incurred on or after June 1, 2025
STANDARD: estates "only pay for 'reasonable and necessary' attorneys' fees and expenses" (TEC §§352.051, 1155.054), evaluated under the Rule 1.04 TDRPC factors. The standards are not absolute rules; the courts make exceptions as fairness demands. ATTORNEY RATES (fiduciary's counsel): by years practicing probate and guardianship law — 0–2 years up to $250/hour; 3–5 up to $300; 6–10 up to $400; 11–20 up to $500; 20+ up to $600. It is probate/guardianship experience that sets the rate, not years licensed; the highest rates in the 11–20 and 20+ bands require board certification in Estate Planning and Probate or a practice at least 50% devoted to it. Attorneys new to the court submit a resume with the fee application. SUPPORTING AFFIDAVITS: every fee petition carries the billing attorney's affidavit; petitions over $1,000 but under $5,000 add "a supporting affidavit from another attorney who has examined the request"; over $5,000, two such affidavits. "Supporting affidavits cannot be signed by members of the petitioning attorney's law firm or of counsel to such firm"; maximum-rate requests need supporting affiants who are board certified or 50%-probate practitioners. AD LITEM FEES: county-pay (indigent) appointments ordinarily compensate an attorney ad litem at $150/hour under the Commissioners Court budget; from a solvent estate, "the Court ordinarily awards a fee of $600 to an attorney ad litem" in a typical case, adjusted for complexity; ad litem fees generally run below the applicant's attorney's fee. ATTORNEY-FIDUCIARY DUAL COMPENSATION: disclosure of the intent to seek dual compensation "as soon as reasonably practicable after the time of appointment" (a notice filed only with the payment request is insufficient); accurate time records segregating legal from non-legal work; attorney's fees only for legal services (the court is the final arbiter of characterization); where the statutory formula (TEC §§352.003, 1155.006) would be unreasonably low, hourly compensation for non-legal fiduciary services may be requested — expected at $150–$200/hour. PARALEGAL RATES: $100–$175/hour by experience (0–2 up to $100; 3–5 up to $125; 6–10 up to $150; 11+ up to $175), with a single $25/hour enhancement for TBLS certification, special qualifications, or pre-approved special-expertise litigation work — the categories do not accumulate. No clerical or administrative services at the paralegal rate; only "specifically delegated substantive legal work" is reimbursable. BILLING: itemize each service with date, timekeeper (legend for initials), detailed description, time, and amount; "Attorneys should bill at a minimum time increment of a tenth (.10) of an hour. The Court will not permit a quarter of an hour (.25) as a minimum billing increment"; separate statements for fiduciary services; no block billing — series entries show per-task time; statutory-formula requests explain the calculation; the application and order titles state the billing period; bills preferably at least annually. TRAVEL: office-to-courthouse time at the approved rate — but attorneys officed outside Dallas County recover courthouse travel at half rate plus IRS-rate mileage; client-visit travel only for incapacitated clients (guardian/GAL/AAL appointments) or emergencies described in the petition. NON-REIMBURSABLE: basic probate/guardianship research (novel questions and court-posed issues are reimbursable); Westlaw/Lexis contract costs (overhead); preparation of invoices and standard fee applications; calls to the Clerk's office; time the court spends assisting counsel or Auditor deficiency conferences; facsimile transmissions. Copies up to $.15/page (Clerk copies at the Clerk's rate), always with per-page charge and count stated. MISFEASANCE: estates are not charged for time or mileage resolving problems caused by the client's or attorney's misfeasance or malfeasance — including show-cause hearings, with all attendance costs personal. FORM OF REQUEST: "Fee requests should be filed as applications for payment of fees or for reimbursement of fees … and not as claims against the estate"; a fee application filed as a claim draws a mandatory hearing under TEC §§355.056 and 1157.056 in every case; the court always reserves the right to require hearings.
Reviewer note: Own-site division-level guidelines composed verbatim (custody sha in the crawl ledger); the signature block's judge name is scan-degraded in the text layer ('...robate Court') — the adopting signature is recorded as present but the signatory name is not claimed; rate tables transcribed exactly; the probate family root hosts a clean-scan duplicate of the same Spring 2025 edition (2025-05-23-Updated-Dallas-County-Probate-Court-Fee-Guidelines.pdf, vision page-1 identity-verified; custody sha in the crawl ledger).
17 verbatim requirements extracted from 4243-01__2021-05.pdf, across 4 topics.
Judge Eckley-Moulder's courtroom policies (court starts 9:30 sharp): at the Final Pre-Trial, all trial counsel and the defendant must be physically present, phones silenced, and no recording without media clearance.