Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Georgia

Since you have a lawyer it would be unethical and improper for other lawyers to advise you, and it also would be impossible, as your lawyer will know the detailed history of the case and no one here does. What claims anyone can make as to legal fees would be something your attorney can discuss with you and you should ask him.

I would totally agree with Attorney Ashman. If your stepmother is the executor of the estate then her attorney should be representing the estate. The estate will have to pay the attorney's legal fees, not your stepmother personally. In such case, you, as beneficiary of the estate, might be liable for 1/3rd of the legal fees which should come out of the estate. However, if there is no money in the estate, I guess I have to seriously question why stepmother and brother have been wrangling for 4 years over nothing.

You don't indicate why your brother and step-mother have been legally fighting and why you felt the need to "protect your interest." I hope it was worth it but unless your stepmother is being personally surcharged for something (as where she caused a loss to the estate), then I think the attorney's fee will come out of all the beneficiaries' shares of the estate and if that is the case, then I can't think of anything which could be filed, unless the fees were somehow deemed excessive given the size and complexity of the estate and time spent. In the case where they are, the court can reduce it.

I don't know the facts, but it seems your brother and stepmother have preferred to squander the estate on legal fees. Calls to mind the famous fictional case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Charles Dickens' novel, Bleak House. In the novel, the case ended when the estate ran out of money. I hope that you do not meet a similar fate.