Effective October 23, 2006 Pacific Life has upgraded and expanded their structured legal fee program to allow for the following:

1. The claimant does not have to structure with Pacific Life, or with any other annuity company, in order for the trial lawyer to structure their fee. Essentially this means that Pacific Life has now joined most of the other life markets and  is accepting "stand alone" legal fee structures. This is important as there has been a widely held misconception that the attorney can only structure if the claimant is also structuring.

2. Pacific Life will, like many other markets, offer joint and survivor annuity options. What this means for trial lawyers is that they can select a life payment that allows for annuity benefits for as long as they or their spouse is alive. This is a huge upgrade in that it allows for the tax deferral of the fee to continue on for the life of a spouse, instead of accelerating payments into the year of the attorneys death.

3. The qualified assignment and release form is required on structured stand alone attorney fees. This is a departure from the more typical qualified assignment that is used, but does allow for language that gives a stronger release.

 As mentioned before structured legal fees are the biggest area of potential growth in our market, and if you'd like to read more on the subject you can check out my blog at Wahlstrom and Associates to see some of the more in depth information we provided there on this topic.