Last month Vice Chancellor Leo E. Strine Jr. of Delaware’s Chancery Court slashed by three-quarters a $4.95 million fee request by class action lawyers who intervened on behalf of shareholders in a dispute involving Cox Enterprises, the media company; he blasted some of the lawyers’ filings as “dashed off complaints” and “hastily drafted throwaways” and questioned whether they had done much to influence the final disposition of the transaction. In Atlanta, on the other hand, “Fulton Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell awarded all of the requested $1.25 million in fees to Atlanta lawyers Corey D. Holzer and Michael I. Fistel Jr. of Holzer & Holzer; Steven J. Estep of Cohen, Cooper, Estep & Mudder; and other lawyers” in parallel class action litigation arising from the same dispute. “A key difference between the two cases was that a group of shareholders in the Delaware case filed official objections to the fee requests, while in Atlanta, the lawyer for those shareholders informally submitted information from the Delaware case to argue that the lawyers in the Fulton case provided little, if any, benefit to the shareholders they represented.” The objecting lawyer in both the Delaware and the Georgia proceedings was Elliott J. Weiss, a professor at the University of Arizona’s James E. Rogers College of Law. Apparently feeling that Weiss’s less-than-official submission could be brushed aside, Judge Russell issued an order approving the fees without elaboration. (Steven H. Pollak, “Ga. Lawyers in Cox Case Escape Fee-Slashing Endured by Delaware Counterparts”, Fulton County Daily Report, Jul. 18). More: Francis Pileggi (Jun. 24) has posted a copy of the Delaware decision (PDF) and Larry Ribstein has commented Jul. 20 (referring to “Chancellor Strine’s classic-to-be opinion”) and again Jul. 29 (“The vice chancellor paints a picture of truly parasitic lawyers inserting themselves into a corporate transaction and demanding to be paid big bucks to go away.”)

Filed under: Arizona, Atlanta, class actions, Delaware