With great settlement money comes great attorneys' fees.
The House Settlement certainly is no different.
According to an USA Today report Friday from contracts ace Steve Berkowitz, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken awarded more than a half-billion dollars to the plaintiffs' attorneys and also carved out a provision that allows the legal experts to apply annually for additional fees and compensation.
Per those figures, attorneys could make nearly $800 million from the House Settlement, which Wilken signed into law with an effective date of July 1 and which ushered in a new era of collegiate athletics that allowed schools who opted into the settlement to begin immediately making direct payments to student-athletes. Wilken formally approved the House Settlement on June 6, 2025.
The House Settlement has a total value of $2.8 billion, a figure that is intended to see the NCAA distribute money in backpay to student-athletes who competed in NCAA sports from 2016-2024. Additionally, the settlement includes framework allowing schools to distribute as much as $20.5 million annually in revenue-share directly to student-athletes in the coming year, with a guarantee of that figuring escalating each year in the agreement by at least 4 percent. For 2026-27, the projected revenue-share among fully participant schools will be $21.32 million.
Wilken defended the fees structure for the attorneys, as Berkowitz noted in his report, and issued an award of $520 million in fees and the potential for another $250 million as the settlement unfolds in the coming years:
"The reasonableness of the fees in question is confirmed by the fact that such fees are commensurate with the extraordinary results that Class Counsel achieved for settlement class members," she wrote, "The risks and costs of continued litigation, the skill and experience of Class Counsel, and the fact that Class Counsel committed substantial resources on a contingency basis for the benefit of settlement class members."