David Giacalone figures that at least the jaw-dropper fee cases serve one useful purpose: they remind judges, the public and the legal profession itself “that we really do have a ban on unreasonable fees and expense charges — we [lawyers] can’t agree on them, charge them, or collect them”. With discussion of the Coughlin Stoia/Coke, Lawrence v. Miller, and certain lawyers’ willingness to bill two clients full freight for the same hour on the clock. (f/k/a, Nov. 21).
Tagged as:
attorneys' fees,
Coughlin Stoia
- You are cordially invited to a fishing expedition for lawsuits over energy drink/alcohol mixes. RSVP: Center for Science in the Public Interest [Balko, Reason "Hit and Run"]
- Recent Overlawyered guestblogger Victoria Pynchon mediates an ADA claim against a Long Beach motel owner. Extortion? Fair compromise? Both? Neither? [Settle It Now, scroll]
- 19-year-old Ciara Sauro of Pittsburgh is disabled, in medical debt, and waiting for transplant, crowning touch is the $8,000 default judgment RIAA got against her for downloading 10 songs [Ambrogi]
- “It does not take a graduate degree to understand that it is unacceptable to hide evidence and lie in a deposition” — Seventh Circuit sanctions Amtrak worker for dodgery in workplace-injury suit [Ohio Employers' Law; Negrete v. Nat’l Railroad Pass, PDF]
- New Richard Nixon tapes: “I can’t have a high-minded lawyer … I want a son-of-a-b—-.” [Althouse]
- Aramark suit documents unsealed: girl paralyzed by drunk driver got $25 million in suit against New York Giants stadium beer vendor [AP/Vineland, N.J. Daily Journal, earlier]
- New York high court bounces Alice Lawrence/Graubard Miller fee suit back to lower courts, says more info needed [NYLJ, earlier]
- Couple claims retention of $1,075 rental security deposit was racially motivated, seeks $20 million [WV Record; Martinsburg, W.Va.]
Tagged as:
ADA filing mills,
ADR,
alcohol,
Aramark,
damages,
railroads,
RIAA and file sharing,
Victoria Pynchon,
West Virginia
- Harvard’s Charles Nesson argues that Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 violates Constitution by letting civil lawyers for RIAA enforce a criminal law [AP/MSNBC, Elefant]
- In some circles, bitter disappointment at reports that Obama camp probably won’t pursue Bush predecessors as war criminals [Paul Campos, Horton/Harper's; earlier]
- Latest on wrangle over “exorbitant” fee: Alice Lawrence’s deposition-skipping before her death could endanger her estate’s claim against Graubard Miller law firm [NYLJ, earlier]
- One benefit of role as law school mega-donor, as Mark Lanier is with Texas Tech, is that you get to rub (hunting-jacket) elbows with visiting Supreme Court justices [WSJ law blog]
- Lou Dobbs and Phyllis Schlafly were among those who pushed bizarre theory of secret conspiracy to merge U.S. into “North American Union” with Canada and Mexico [John Hawkins]
- Senate Dems plan to abolish secret ballot for installing unions in everyone else’s workplace, so how come they insist on one for themselves in deciding how to handle Joe Lieberman? [Dan Riehl via McArdle]
- Congrats to historian Rick Brookhiser and City Journal editor Myron Magnet, among recipients of 2008 National Humanities Medal [White House release, Brian Anderson, NRO]
- Jarek Molski, California entrepreneur of disabled-access complaints, loses bid for Supreme Court review of his designation as vexatious litigant [AP, Bashman]
Tagged as:
Canada,
card check,
contingent fee,
Harry Reid,
international human rights,
Jarek Molski,
law schools,
Mark Lanier,
Mexico,
RIAA and file sharing
- Chemerinsky, other critics should apologize to Second Circuit chief judge Dennis Jacobs over bogus “he doesn’t believe in pro bono!” outcry [Point of Law and update]
- New York high court skeptical of ultra-high contingency fee in Alice Lawrence v. Graubard Miller case [NYLJ; earlier here and here]
- Panel of legal journalists: press let itself be used in attack on Judge Kozinski [Above the Law]
- Unfree campaign speech, cont’d: South Dakota anti-abortion group sues to suppress opponents’ ads as “patently false and misleading” [Feral Child]
- Even if you’re tired of reading about Roy Pearson’s pants, you might still enjoy Carter Wood’s headlines on the case at ShopFloor ["Pandora's Zipper", "Suit Alors!"]
- Rare grant of fees in patent dispute, company had inflicted $2.5 million in cost on competitors and retailers by asserting rights over nursing mother garb [NJLJ]
- Time to be afraid? Sen. Bingaman (D-N.M.) keen on reintroducing talk-radio-squelching Fairness Doctrine [Radio Equalizer]
- “Yours, in litigious anticipation” — Frank McCourt as child in Angela’s Ashes drafted a nastygram with true literary flourish [Miriam Cherry, Concurring Opinions]
Tagged as:
Alex Kozinski,
broadcasters,
campaign regulation,
contingent fee,
Erwin Chemerinsky,
Ireland,
nastygrams,
New York state,
patent quality,
pro bono,
Roy Pearson,
sanctions,
Second Circuit,
South Dakota
- UK: Paramedic twists ankle on steps responding to emergency call, plans to sue elderly couple [Daily Mail]
- Critics say litigiousness is part of the business plan for rental outfit Leasecomm, which has sued its customers more than 92,000 times [Boston Globe, Daily News Transcript]
- Great big predators of the alternative press? Jury awards $15 million against SF Weekly to its main competitor, Bay Guardian [SF Chronicle]
- Tacoma public schools sued after mentally ill student brings gun to school and kills classmate [KOMO]
- How the parties traded positions with each other on trade [Gordon, Commentary]
- Now Canada has its own “human rights” complaint against plastic surgeon who declines to undertake transgender-related surgery [Steyn, Macleans; earlier Catholic hospital case from California]
- Florida Supreme Court hears appeal of Joe Anderson $18 million “false light” defamation verdict against Gannett’s Pensacola News-Journal [WSJ law blog; earlier]
- Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman keeps suing bloggers and dragging websites before those Canadian hate-speech tribunals, so no criticizing him please [Levant, Five Feet of Fury (& more), Steyn]
- Discontent continues over judges’ standardless discretion in granting alimony awards [NLJ]
- Death of widow Alice Lawrence isn’t expected to end her litigation with law firm Graubard Miller over contingency fee [NYLJ; earlier]
- Labor arbitrator tells Florida school to rehire employee who reported to work with cocaine in his system [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Tagged as:
Canada,
competition through litigation,
contingent fee,
false light,
free trade,
hate speech,
hospitals,
Leasecomm,
libel slander and defamation,
Richard Warman,
roundups,
third party liability for crime,
transgender,
United Kingdom
In Lawrence v. Graubard Miller (Dec. 1), an 83-year-old widow appears to have been spectacularly imposed upon by her fee-seeking lawyers, nor is it clear that the courts will afford her any remedy. David Giacalone wonders why so few legal bloggers have taken an interest in the case (Dec. 11).
Tagged as:
ethics
Alice Lawrence had timely paid $18 million over 22 years to Graubard Miller in a lengthy dispute over her husband’s estate. The law firm had billed her on an hourly basis—until there was a $60 million settlement offer on the table, at which point it suddenly renegotiated its retainer agreement to be a 40% “contingent fee”, though there was obviously nothing contingent about the award, and the firm wasn’t offering to repay the money it had already billed. Five months later, there was a $105 million settlement—and Graubard Miller claimed as its fee for the five months of work $42 million of the $45 million additional money that it had negotiated, for a total of $60 million for the case. Lawrence asked the New York courts to protect her, but a 4-1 majority of the Appellate Division upheld the decision (via Lattman). The New York Times article (not to mention Bizarro-Overlawyered, which unsurprisingly doesn’t care much about fraud and rip-offs when they’re occasioned by attorneys against widows) doesn’t even begin to mention the fact that the “contingent fee” didn’t provide any risk for the law firm: the retainer agreement had a floor whereby Graubard Miller got to charge an hourly rate for the first year of trial even if it didn’t collect anything, guaranteeing it another $1.2 million on top of the $18 million it had already collected. The best coverage in the New York Law Journal, which notes that Graubard Miller schnorred another $7.8 million in gifts and gift taxes from Lawrence, whose total payment thus totaled nearly $68 million. (Anthony Lin, “Late 40 Percent Retainer Pact Survives Widow’s Dismissal Bid”, Nov. 29; Anthony Lin, “Widow’s Suit Seeks Return of $50M in ‘Excessive’ Fees and Gifts”, Sep. 16, 2005).
Unfortunately for Lawrence’s case, she did negotiate the Graubard Miller firm down from its original 50% (!) contingent-fee proposal, so in one sense she wasn’t completely the unwitting pawn of the firm, even though Graubard Miller failed to suggest that she consult independent counsel about the multi-million dollar negotiation. The question becomes whether the attorney-client relationship is at all fiduciary, or whether it’s purely contractual—in which case, one wonders why there is such an elaborate screening mechanism to permit prospective attorneys to participate in the guild in the first place.
It’s nice that the New York courts are so respectful of contracts that they dismiss cases at an early stage of the litigation. One hopes that they do that in situations other than those involving the fiduciary duties of attorneys.
[click to continue…]
Tagged as:
contingent fee,
ethics,
feeing frenzy
