From an attorney's perspective, the statutory fee is like agreeing to a contingency fee for a personal injury claim. There are a lot of unknowns, even when an estate appears to be very routine and orderly. In some injury cases a lawyer is able to settle the case after writing two letters and making a few phone calls. In that example the fee seems too high. In another injury case that may seem just as simple, the case settles on the eve of trial after many hours of work and the fee seems way too low. While your estate has been very efficient and orderly, there was no guaranty that it would proceed easily and even though if problems had arisen they might have been subject to extraordinary compensation, such extraordinary compensation requires court approval and the court may disallow much of the requested additional fee.

Again, from the attorney's perspective, while fees may be negotiable, working for a statutory fee in all cases is a way of ceating some measure of certainty so that no matter how many hours are actually required there will be a set fee at the end of the process.