Plaintiffs’ attorneys led by Milberg Weiss received only $710/hour for their work transferring $1 billion from current Nortel shareholders to past Nortel shareholders (and, of course, their attorneys) in a securities lawsuit, for a total of $34 million (plus $3.7 million in expenses). They had been seeking nearly three times that amount. While Judge Berman found that the fee request of 5.8 times regular hourly billing rates was excessive, he did not inquire into whether the law firms’ claim of 47,846 hours billed was reasonable. Indicted Milberg Weiss attorney Steven Bershad had been lead counsel until he was voluntarily substituted by another Milberg Weiss attorney shortly after his indictment. (In re: Nortel Networks Corp. Securities Litig., No. 01-cv-1855 (Jan. 29, 2006); David Glovin, Bloomberg, Jan. 29). Update: WSJ Law Blog has the ruling on line.
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