“Police officer Michael Harrington sued after getting snookered out of $44.63 in overtime pay. He later settled for $10,500 and sought about $46,000 in attorney fees. If that seems out of proportion, Los Angeles’ 2nd District Court of Appeal agrees with you. The court reduced the fee award to $500. ‘At the risk of understatement,’ Justice Miriam Vogel wrote last week, ‘there is no way on Earth this case justified the hours purportedly billed by Harrington’s lawyers.’” (Mike McKee, The Recorder, Mar. 5).
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In ethics; workplace
Why do we never read of fraud charges brought up in these situations? These are such perfect examples of both the abuse of a system by lawyers and the system’s total lack of “policing.”
While $46k is awfully high, $500 is about 2 hours worth of work. I dare any of you to a good enough job in two hours (especially one that nets your clients 235 times the original value ;)).
This highlights on the one hand the excesses and inefficiences inherent in the billable hours system and on the other the cases many law firms will try to avoid because it’s just uneconomical and not worth it. Nobody wins.
That’s good for the attorney. I agree with all the comments though. I find that attorney’s are greedy and basically commit what I call “White Collar Crime” from being unethical when it comes to fees. It is very sad and while they enjoy ripping individuals off by taking their hard earned money, they will have to pay for it someday, whether financially or another way.
I’ll be writing my own article on this in my next issue of my magazine. Check out my website at Its Our Reality Magazine