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Standards for Court Approval of Attorney Fee Applications — Harris County Probate Courts (revision effective March 3, 2025) — posted on the court's own website — the court-procedure tier (standing procedures, policies, and preferences the court itself publishes), distinct from the TOPICs-registered local-rules tier (TRCP 3a registration applies to local rules). Operative requirements quoted verbatim; the posted document is the controlling text.
Texas > Harris County > Statutory Probate Courts
Standards for Court Approval of Attorney Fee Applications — The Probate Courts of Harris County (revision effective March 3, 2025). It is the Courts' duty to ensure that estates of decedents and wards pay only for "reasonable and necessary" attorney's fees and expenses (Texas Estates Code §352.051 and §1155.003). These standards are not absolute rules; the Courts will make exceptions in particular circumstances as fairness and justice demand. Court-approved rates for court-appointed attorneys and fees payable by a court-supervised estate or trust, by years practicing probate and guardianship law: 0–2 years up to $250/hour; 3–5 years up to $300/hour; 6–10 years up to $400/hour; 11–20 years up to $500/hour; 20+ years up to $600/hour. The Courts consider experience and Board Certification in Probate and Estate Planning. County-pay cases: the Courts ordinarily compensate attorneys ad litem and guardians ad litem at an hourly rate of $150; court-appointed ad litems are not entitled to the flat fee of $750 but must instead bill at the county-pay hourly rate. Solvent estates: in a typical or average case the Court generally awards a flat fee of $750 to attorneys ad litem for appointments made after March 3, 2025; court appointees are expected to maintain itemized billing at the standard rate and should be prepared to submit the billing if requesting compensation above the flat rate. Attorney-fiduciary dual compensation requires full disclosure and adherence to the Courts' guidelines.
Reviewer note: Own-site document live-fetched by us 2026-08-22, byte-identical to the AJR-11 recon capture of 2026-08-21 (dual custody). Operative provisions transcribed by vision-read of the posted scanned document (rasterized at 170 dpi; no usable embedded text layer); the posted document (sha256 b981c452d04e…) is the controlling text. Posted identically (same sha256) on the Probate Court No. 1 and Probate Court No. 4 pages — one county-wide instrument, composed once.
Tenth (10th) Court of Appeals — Standing Order No. 1, as registered in the statewide TOPICs local-rules registry (posted 01/01/2023). The operative requirements are quoted verbatim; the registered document is the controlling text.
Tenth (10th) Court of Appeals — Standing Order No. 2, as registered in the statewide TOPICs local-rules registry (posted 01/01/2023). The operative requirements are quoted verbatim; the registered document is the controlling text.