What does my client actually take home?
A settlement disbursement statement that ties to the penny, with the fee-basis difference in plain sight. Free, no sign-up, and nothing you type leaves this page.
Closing statement
Turn on JavaScript to build the statement. The arithmetic runs in this page and nothing is sent anywhere either way.
This page adds up one settled contingency file. It takes the gross recovery, the fee rate and basis from your agreement, the case costs, anything advanced to the client, every third-party payable and anything staying in trust, and it prints the closing statement.
The deduction order it prints is fixed: attorney fee, then case costs, then client advances, then third-party payables, then funds held back, then NET TO CLIENT. No lien is calculated or reduced anywhere on this page.
Settlement Disbursement Statement
Recovery
Deductions
| Paid to | What it is | Claimed | Paying now | Status |
|---|
Funds held in trust
Every third-party figure above is the amount recorded by the firm. No lien was calculated, reduced or evaluated in preparing this statement.
Once the fee basis is fixed, this order is presentational. Reordering lines 3 through 6 cannot change line 7 by a cent.
This sheet does arithmetic on the figures you enter. It is not legal or tax advice, it makes no determination about any fee or lien, and the fee agreement and your state's requirements control.
There is no statement to print until a basis is chosen.
Nothing you type here is sent anywhere. There is no account, no server, no model and no analytics on this page, and nothing is saved to this device. Printing, copying and downloading all happen inside your own browser.
The other basis
Pick a fee basis and both bases appear here, side by side.
Before anything moves
This panel is for you. It does not print on the client's copy.
How the settlement disbursement statement works
Everything on this page is a number you typed. The sheet adds, subtracts, rounds once and lays the result out in the shape a client signs. It looks nothing up.
- Your amounts become whole cents.Every figure is held as an integer number of cents from the moment you type it, so nothing drifts. Type more than two decimal places and the sheet rounds to the nearest cent and tells you it did, naming the line and both numbers.
- The fee basis is your choice, and it's the only one with money attached.Your agreement says whether the percentage comes off the whole recovery or off the recovery after case costs. Either may appear in an agreement. On a $100,000.00 settlement with $6,400.00 in case costs at one third, the difference to your client is $2,133.33. That's a different check, not a rounding artifact. The basis you pick prints on the statement in a full sentence, and the other one stays on screen beside it.
- One third is not 33.33%.The preset chip holds an exact third, so a $100,000.00 recovery gives $33,333.33. Type 33.33 and you get $33,330.00, which is a different number and a real $3.33. The sheet keeps whichever you chose, exactly, and rounds once at the end.
- Liens are recorded. Nothing about them is calculated.You enter what each payee claimed and what you negotiated them down to, and both print. No Medicare reduction, no procurement-cost formula, no made-whole analysis, no ERISA reimbursement math, no hospital-lien cap, no priority ordering. Those are state and federal rules that turn on facts this page has never seen, and a wrong reduction moves somebody else's money while telling you it was calculated for you.
- Net to client is what is left, not a separate sum.The sheet subtracts the fee, the case costs, the advances, the payables and the holdbacks from the gross settlement, and whatever remains is the client's. It can't fail to add up, because there's no second calculation to disagree with the first. The reconciliation line at the bottom re-adds every printed row and shows you it lands back on the gross.
- A negative net stops the sheet.Sometimes the liens and the costs come to more than the recovery. It happens in medical-negligence files and small-policy wrecks. You get the arithmetic and a warning, not a quiet minus sign, and printing is off until you sort it out.
The waterfall order, printed on every statement
| Order | Line |
|---|---|
| 1 | Gross settlement, itemized by source |
| 2 | Attorney fee, on the basis stated above |
| 3 | Case costs and expenses |
| 4 | Client advances |
| 5 | Third-party payables |
| 6 | Funds held back, with the reason for each |
| 7 | NET TO CLIENT |
Once the fee basis is fixed, this order is presentational. Reordering lines 3 through 6 cannot change line 7 by a cent.
Who this is for
You're the case manager, the paralegal or the settlement clerk at a small contingency practice, or the solo attorney doing the last administrative act on the file yourself. The insurer's draft has cleared into trust, and before a dollar moves somebody has to produce the sheet the client signs.
The files this fits: a car wreck that paid from a liability policy and a UM/UIM layer, a premises case with a hospital lien and a health plan still asking for its money, a file where a number is staying in trust until a final demand turns up.
The file this does not fit is the one where you want the page to work out a lien reduction for you. It records what you negotiated and prints it. It doesn't negotiate, and it checks nobody's arithmetic but its own.
Attorney questions about settlement disbursement statements
What is a settlement disbursement statement?
It is the sheet that shows where a settlement went. Gross recovery at the top, then the attorney fee, the case costs, anything advanced to the client, what each lienholder or health plan is being paid, anything staying in trust, and what is left for the client at the bottom. Firms also call it a closing statement or a disbursement sheet. Careful with "closing statement" in a search box, though. Most of the internet thinks you mean a closing argument.
Is the attorney fee taken off the gross settlement or after case costs?
Either basis may apply, and your fee agreement decides which. The rule that most states model their own on requires the agreement to state the expenses that come out of the recovery "and whether such expenses are to be deducted before or after the contingent fee is calculated." Look for that term in the agreement, then pick the stated basis here. On a $100,000.00 settlement with $6,400.00 in case costs at one third, the client's check differs by $2,133.33.
How much of the settlement does the lawyer get?
Whatever the signed agreement says, and this page does not guess. The preset chips make one third and 40% quick to enter, but they are not a national standard. Some states cap the percentage in certain case types. California's medical-negligence cap, for one, is written against the recovery after costs rather than before. Type your own rate; the agreement controls.
Who gets paid first out of a personal injury settlement?
Once the fee basis is settled, the order is bookkeeping rather than arithmetic. Reshuffling the deduction lines cannot change the client's net by a cent. What the order does is make the sheet readable, which is why this one is fixed and printed: fee, case costs, client advances, third-party payables, funds held back, net to client. Who may be paid, and when, depends on the fee agreement, each third-party claim, court orders and the rules that apply to the file, not this calculation.
Why is money being held back from the settlement?
One reason is that a number is not final yet: a health plan has not sent its last demand, a provider bill is still moving, or a payee has asserted a figure nobody has confirmed. Whether money must stay in trust, and how much, depends on the obligation and the rules that apply to the file. This sheet does not decide that. It requires a reason for any holdback you enter and prints the reason beside the amount.
Does the client have to sign the closing statement?
The widely modeled rule says the client is owed a written statement at the end of a contingency matter showing the remittance and how it was worked out. By itself it does not require a signature on that statement. Some states go further and do require one. A firm may still choose to take the signature as its own record of what the client saw before the money moved. So this page prints a signature block for the client and the attorney. Check your own state's requirements; that part is not something a web page can tell you.
Will this calculate or reduce a Medicare lien?
No, and that is deliberate. You enter what Medicare claimed and what you are actually paying, and both print exactly as you typed them. There is no procurement-cost reduction here, no pro-rata formula, no made-whole analysis and no ERISA math. Those turn on the specific plan language, the specific state and the specific facts, and a tool that gets one wrong misroutes a third party's money while telling you it did the work. Negotiate the number, then record it here.
How long after the statement is signed does the client get paid?
That depends on your trust account and the rules that apply in your state, not on this sheet. Confirm that the settlement funds are available for disbursement under those rules before any money moves. What this page does is get the arithmetic and the document ready so nothing is waiting on the paperwork.
Settlement disbursement sheet, settlement statement, closing statement
The document has four names and one job. Settlement disbursement statement, settlement disbursement sheet, settlement distribution sheet, closing statement: firms and forms use all four for the page that accounts for every dollar of a settlement, from gross recovery down to net to client. Search for "closing statement" on its own and you'll mostly get closing arguments, so the settlement-side names are the useful ones.
The shape is standard because the job is standard. Recovery first, itemized by source, because a personal injury file that pays from a liability policy, a UM/UIM layer and med-pay is ordinary rather than exotic. Then the attorney fee on the basis the agreement states. Then case costs, itemized with payees, because "costs $6,400.00" is a figure and a list of seven lines is a record. Then anything advanced to the client, then every third-party payable with what was claimed beside what is being paid, then anything staying in trust with its reason. Net to client at the bottom, in its own block, where the client's eye goes first anyway.
What separates a good sheet from a copied spreadsheet is that a good one proves itself. Every printed line adds back to the gross settlement, in front of the person signing it. That's the whole reason this page computes the client's net as what remains rather than as its own multiplication: a second calculation is a second chance to disagree with the first, and the client has a phone calculator.
Sources and last checked
Label sets and source check: settlement-disbursement-2026-09-05. Last checked September 8, 2026.
The wording this page prints was built against the contingent-fee rules published by the American Bar Association, the Texas Supreme Court, the California Legislature's own statute site and The Florida Bar, each read on its issuing body's site rather than taken from a secondary source. They are the reason the fee basis is a question here instead of a preselected radio button.
The tool applies none of them. The recovery-source, case-cost, payable and status lists on this page are labels: they carry no amount, no rate, no threshold and no rule, and picking one changes the printed wording and nothing else. Every figure on the statement is a figure somebody at your firm typed.
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