…and the judge hearing an attorneys’-fee petition in the TJX credit-card data-breach case reasoned that the lawyers didn’t really deserve $6.5 million in fees for achieving that result. The lawyers proposed, but the judge was unimpressed with, a theory that their suit had “made available” $200 million to the class, even if few class members stopped by to pick it up. Such sticklers, these judges can be. (Beck and Herrmann, Nov. 11). Related: Dec. 4, 2007.
Posts Tagged ‘attorneys’ fees’
“Thank goodness for especially greedy lawyers in high-profile lawsuits”
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).
From comments: lawyer referral fees
Reader Phil Grossman, in comments to yesterday’s post about the hawking of injury case leads to lawyers, advances some interesting contentions, including some I’m not knowledgeable enough to evaluate, about lawyer referrals and fee-splitting:
…Lawyers are the only professional group that considers it ethical to pay referral fees. The bar associations allow and approve referral fees as long as they are paid only to other lawyers.
In the sort of mass tort lawsuits that this company is dealing in, it is extremely common for ‘clients’ to be bought and sold, sometimes multiple times, with a typical referral fee being around a third of the contingency fee. The general public doesn’t realize that the lawyer advertising on TV or out on the Internet for mass tort clients is usually just a marketer, selling all the clients he collects to other lawyers. It is actually more lucrative to advertise for clients and then sell them to other lawyers than to do the actual work of representing clients.
If, for example, someone is injured in an auto accident, it is common for a relative or friend who happens to be a lawyer to offer to refer the victim to a “good personal injury lawyer”. But the victims aren’t aware that their relative or friend is probably making money off of their accident by collecting around a third or so of the contingency fee from the lawyer they have been referred to. Although bar association rules usually say the referral fee and its amount should be disclosed to the client, in practice it is always kept secret from the client, who thinks his or her lawyer relative or friend is just being altruistic.
But it appears that this company might be trying to collect money up front from its targeted lawyers, rather than taking the normal percentage payment of their referral fees from the contingency fees after the fact. If so, the targeted lawyers need to be very cautious indeed.
And:
Read On…
Vioxx settlement: Judge Fallon caps fees at 32%
MDL Judge Eldon Fallon orders plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees in the $4.85 billion settlement to be capped at 32%. Hooray, right? Certainly, the trial bar is capable of arguing for itself that the ruling is wrong and it is entitled to a couple of hundred million more, but I might just have to take their side here.
Judge: 9/11 settlements, fees exorbitant
“A federal judge in Manhattan took the unusual step on Thursday of overturning settlements in four lawsuits filed on behalf of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, saying the firm that negotiated the deals was seeking excessive legal fees and that the settlement amounts themselves were unreasonable.” Judge Alvin Hellerstein declared that to give the Maryland-based firm, Azrael, Gann & Franz $7 million for representing four Pentagon workers’ families “would reflect a very large windfall,” given that the firm’s “entire strategy seems to have been to coast on the work of others.” Hellerstein also noted that the settlement figures, averaging $7 million per victim, seemed out of line with earlier 9/11 awards for the families of modest wage earners. (Benjamin Weiser, “Judge Overturns Accords in 4 Suits by 9/11 Victims”, New York Times, Jul. 26). More: David Giacalone.
May 19 roundup
- No imprisonment for debt, except when owed to a lawyer? Texas man who didn’t pay $1,750 attorney fee jailed for 30 days [ABA Journal; Jonathan Skero]
- Exploding-bra claim against Victoria’s Secret “does not specify how the injury occurred” [Greenville, S.C. News]
- We’re all set to close on your mortgage refinance, and while we’re at it could I interest you in a class action over courier fees? [Madison County Record]
- So long we elect state court judges, they’ll never escape taint associated with need to campaign [J.D. Hull, What About Clients?]
- Milberg now argues any forfeiture of proceeds from tainted cases should be confined to its actual net profits, not gross fee revenue — would it have let off defendants it sued so easily? [Gerstein, NY Sun]
- Tom Goldstein of Akin Gump (SCOTUSblog) has a spoof “Call 1-CER-TIORARI” TV ad hawking his Supreme Court advocacy [YouTube]
- New at Point of Law: Colorado unions’ revenge initiatives; Dennis Quaid at Congressional hearing on federal pre-emption; guess why Orlando isn’t getting commuter rail; drafting docs for ER duty; court green-lights suit blaming U.S. business for South African apartheid; what we can learn from defunct causes of action; Rhode Island high court mulls lead paint suit; and Ted on Massachusetts med-mal study and on reversal of $32 million Garza v. Merck Vioxx verdict.
- Managers at Tim Horton may have been ninnies to fire worker who quieted crying child by giving out free mini-donut, but today’s law does tend to ninnyize those in authority [Cosh/National Post, Canada]
- Jonathan Rauch isn’t overjoyed at California high court marriage ruling [Independent Gay Forum; more from Kmiec, Lederman and others at Slate and from Eugene Volokh] More: Steve Chapman via Sullivan and Dale Carpenter @ Volokh.
- Road delayed at £1million expense, and then great crested newt turned out not to be there [Leicester, U.K.; Ananova]
- Why trial lawyers were pleased when Boeing moved its HQ from Seattle to Chicago [seven years ago on Overlawyered]
May 6 roundup
- Raelyn Campbell briefly captured national spotlight (“Today” show, MSNBC) with $54 million suit against Best Buy for losing laptop, but it’s now been dismissed [Shop Floor; earlier]
- Charmed life of Florida litigators Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt continues as Miami judge awards them $218 million for class action lawsuit they lost [Daily Business Report, Krauss @ PoL; earlier here, here, and here]
- Lerach said kickbacks were “industry practice” and “everybody was paying plaintiffs”. True? Top House GOPer Boehner wants hearings to find out [NAM “Shop Floor”, WSJ law blog]
- It’s Dannimal House! An “office rife with booze, profanity, inappropriate sexual activity, misuse of state vehicles and on-the-job threats involving the Mafia” — must be Ohio AG Marc Dann, of NYT “next Eliot Spitzer” fame [AP/NOLA, Adler @ Volokh, Above the Law, Wood @ PoL; earlier]
- Sorry, Caplin & Drysdale, but you can’t charge full hourly rates for time spent traveling but not working on that asbestos bankruptcy [NLJ] More: Elefant.
- Fire employee after rudely asking if she’s had a face-lift? Not unless you’ve got $1.7 million to spare [Chicago Tribune]
- Daniel Schwartz has more analysis of that Stamford, Ct. disabled-firefighter case (May 1); if you want a fire captain to be able to read quickly at emergency scene, better spell that out explicitly in the job description [Ct Emp Law Blog]
- As expected, star Milberg expert John Torkelsen pleads guilty to perjury arising from lies he told to conceal his contingent compensation arrangements [NLJ; earlier]
- Case of deconstructionist prof who plans to sue her Dartmouth students makes the WSJ [Joseph Rago, op-ed page, Mindles H. Dreck @ TigerHawk; earlier]
- How’d I do, mom? No violation of fair trial for judge’s mother to be one of the jurors [ABA Journal]
- First sell the company’s stock short, then sue it and watch its share price drop. You mean there’s some ethical problem with that? [three years ago on Overlawyered]
May 2 roundup
- Contriving to give Sheldon Silver the moral high ground: NY judges steamed at lack of raises are retaliating against Albany lawmakers’ law firms [NY Post and editorial. More: Turkewitz.]
- When strong laws prove weak: Britain’s many layers of land use control seem futile against determined builders of gypsy encampments [Telegraph]
- “U.S. patent chief: applications up, quality down” [EETimes]
- Plenty of willing takers for those 4,703 new cars that survived the listing-ship near-disaster, but Mazda destroyed them instead [WSJ]
- “Prof. Dohrn [for] Attorney General and Rev. Wright [for] Secretary of State”? So hard to tell when left-leaning lawprof Brian Leiter is kidding and when he’s not [Leiter Reports]
- Yet another hard-disk-capacity class action settlement, $900K to Strange & Carpenter [Creative HDD MP3 Player; earlier. More: Sullum, Reason “Hit and Run”.]
- Filipino ship whistleblowers’ case: judge slashes Texas attorney’s fee, “calling the lawyer’s attempt to bill his clients nearly $300,000 ‘unethically excessive.'” [Boston Globe, earlier]
- RFK Jr. Watch: America’s Most Irresponsible Public Figure® endorses Oklahoma poultry litigation [Legal NewsLine]
- Just what the budget-strapped state needs: NY lawmakers earmark funds for three (3) new law schools [NY Post editorial; PoL first, second posts, Greenfield]
- In Indiana, IUPUI administrators back off: it wasn’t racial harassment after all for student-employee to read a historical book on fight against Klan [FIRE; earlier]
- Fiesta Cornyation in San Antonio just isn’t the same without the flying tortillas [two years ago on Overlawyered]
April 24 roundup
- Telemarketers working for lawyers and chiropractors “line up every day” at police and public records offices to buy car-crash records [Dallas Morning News]
- Nice work if you can get it: Bernardine Dohrn’s terrorist-to-lawprof career track [Kass, Chapman @ Chicago Tribune, Ed Morrissey/HotAir, PoL, Horowitz/DtN, Daily Northwestern/FrontPage, Malkin, Power Line]
- Mystery of embattled Florida debt-relief law firm Hess Kennedy (Mar. 6) deepens as whereabouts of lawyer Edward Kennedy are questioned [ABA Journal]
- Criticism mounts of Calif. AG Jerry Brown’s lawsuits using global warming theories to force higher-density development [Stewart/LA Weekly, Walters/SacBee, via Kaus, scroll]
- Kevin Pho (KevinMD.com) on defensive medicine [USA Today]
- Colorado firm says lawsuit’s “settlement mill” allegations are concocted “by a competitor who doesn’t like (Azar’s) advertising.” [Colorado Springs Gazette]
- Hey, you can rig up a disposable camera to give you a little shock; it might also give you a D felony record under school zero tolerance [WTNH via Greenfield]
- One good thing about those anonymous snitchlines for domestic abuse, you don’t have to worry about bogus calls or anything like that [Colorado Springs Gazette on Texas polygamist raid backstory]
- Lawyers get $2 million in fees in Netflix class action [WSJ law blog; earlier]
- Supreme Court refuses cert on that very curious $112 million (originally $1 billion) land-contamination verdict from Louisiana [Exxon v. Grefer, Dow Jones/Fortune; CalPunitives link roundup; earlier; more background at Laura Hart/Louisiana Law Blog]
- Cow-pie bingo event falls victim to liability fears [three years ago on Overlawyered]
April 2 roundup
- Judge expresses surprise at how many law firms want in on fees in Visa/MasterCard issuer settlement [NYSun]
- Mississippi bill would require a lawyer’s presence at real estate escrow closings; so rude to cite the profession’s self-interest as a factor [Clarion-Ledger]
- Following Coughlin Stoia’s lead, Mark Lanier announces he’s expanding into intellectual property litigation [The Recorder]
- Maryland legislation would require state-aided colleges and universities to report on what they’re doing to advance “cultural diversity” [Examiner via Bader/Open Market]
- New era at UK pubs? Under new directive, “employers will risk being sued if a bar worker or waitress complains of being called ‘love’ or ‘darling’, or if staff overhear customers telling sexist jokes.” [Daily Mail]
- ACLU just sued city of San Diego and snagged $900K in legal fees, but that’s no impediment to the city’s council’s enacting a special day of tribute to the group [House of Eratosthenes]
- George Wallace, who’s guestblogged here, hosts twin editions of Blawg Review #153 at his blogs Declarations & Exclusions and A Fool in the Forest, on piratical and Punchinello themes;
- Obama won’t support lowering drinking age [Newsweek]
- Such a shame for entrepreneurial plaintiffs, post-Proposition 64 if you want to sue a California business you might actually need to have been injured [CalBizLit]
- Time mag appeals $100 million Suharto libel ruling [IHT]
- Hey, no fair enforcing that fine print disclaiming liability for sweepstakes misprints [three years ago on Overlawyered]