Strong fund-raising helps keep the North Carolinian a credible Democratic alternative; AP cites in particular the generosity of the lawyers at Lerach Coughlin (Jim Kuhnhenn, “Clinton reports $24 mil in the bank, trails Obama in primary donations”, AP/DeKalb, Ill., Daily Chronicle, Apr. 16).
Posts Tagged ‘Coughlin Stoia’
Lerach Coughlin partner faces D.C. ethics charges
G. Paul Howes, who’s handled Lerach’s high-profile litigation over losses arising from the Enron collapse, faces serious ethics charges over actions he took during his earlier career as a federal prosecutor. “On Feb. 1, the D.C. Bar Counsel filed eight charges against Howes after a four-year investigation, accusing him of violating bar ethics rules by committing criminal acts, making false statements in court, offering prohibited payments to witnesses, and interfering with the administration of justice.” Ethics proceedings against federal prosecutors are rare; disbarment is among the possible sanctions that could be asked. It doesn’t appear Howes is going to win any popularity contests among his former law enforcement colleagues:
Amy Jeffress, deputy chief of the office’s Organized Crime and Narcotics Trafficking Section[,] referred to Howes — though not by name — during a Jan. 31 debate on the power of prosecutors at American University, Washington College of Law.
“He actually left the office and moved all the way across the country to San Diego to escape his shame and his bad reputation,” Jeffress said, according to a recording of the debate. “He basically became a pariah in our office. His name is a synonym around our office for no-no. You don’t want to do what he did.”
(Brendan Smith, “Former Prosecutor Charged With Misconduct in Gang Cases”, Legal Times, Feb. 15).
Hey, look, I’m suing Cisco Systems
Dr. Michael Hébert opens his mail to learn that the law firms of Lerach Coughlin and Levin Papantonio have been representing him in a class action for the past four years, in a shareholder suit against Cisco. One problem he notices is that the opt-out notice arrives in his mailbox two weeks after the expiration of the period allowed for opting out. And he finds other reasons as well not to be overly impressed by the generosity of Messrs. Lerach Coughlin and Levin Papantonio, even if they are willing to contribute their valuable legal services for a mere $15 million in fees plus expenses. (Doctor Hébert’s Medical Gumbo, Nov. 16).
Honorable mention: attorney Curtis Kennedy
Who says we shrink from giving lawyers favorable publicity? From a report earlier this month in the Rocky Mountain News:
The California law firm Lerach Coughlin sought $96 million in legal fees when it engineered a $400 million shareholder class-action settlement with Qwest Communications over alleged securities fraud.
So how much did Denver attorney Curtis Kennedy seek when he prevailed in getting those legal fees slashed to $60 million – thus providing $36 million more for the shareholders?
Only $40,500. That’s the 90 hours Kennedy spent on the case times his hourly rate of $300 times 1.5, according to a federal court filing this week. …
Other attorneys might have tried to get a percentage of the $36 million.
“I just think that would be hypocritical after asking the judge to apply moderation” to the $96 million request by Lerach Coughlin, Kennedy said.
Kennedy was representing the Association of U S West Retirees in the case. (Jeff Smith, “Lawyer asks for $40,500 in legal fees”, Rocky Mountain News, Oct. 12)(via Securities Litigation Watch).
“$1 Billion Legal Fee Eyed in Enron Suit”
That’s what Bill Lerach, late of Milberg Weiss, could bag as Enron settlements mount toward $10 bmillion. It seems Lerach has a sliding-scale contingency-fee arrangement with his lead plaintiff, the University of California, starting at 8 percent and going upward from there. And — this is the beauty part — it seems there’s a good chance courts will simply extend the percentage rates to apply to the many other investors in the plaintiff class, even though they never signed up to be Lerach clients or were given a chance to negotiate fees with him. No wonder class-action lawyers are so concerned to butter up the universities, pension funds, unions and other big institutional plaintiffs who serve as their stalking horses in these actions. The university, it seems, did not employ competitive bidding to invite participation by other potential counsel.
A critic of class action litigation, Lawrence Schonbrun, said he is suspicious of the university’s claims that it has vigilantly overseen the Enron case. A retired judge the university hired as a consultant on the case, J. Lawrence Irving, was paid more than $1.4 million by the state school, before being hired this month as a consultant by Lerach Coughlin. “This was not the ideal choice to monitor plaintiffs’ counsel,” Mr. Schonbrun said.
(Josh Gerstein, New York Sun, May 31).
“$16.3 million in lawyer fees OK”
Waving big fees through the gate:
A Denver District Court judge overseeing a $50 million class-action settlement from Qwest Communications shot down a shareholder group’s request to limit plaintiff attorney fees to $10 million.
Judge John Coughlin gave short shrift to arguments presented by the Association of U S West Retirees, which asked the court — at the very least — to delay settlement approval until attorneys submitted detailed documentation of their hours and expenses.
At a fairness hearing [Aug. 30], the judge ruled the class counsel, led by Los Angeles law firm Lerach Coughlin, was entitled to $15 million, or 30 percent of the settlement, plus an additional $1.3 million in out-of-pocket expenses….
[The retiree association] wanted proof of each firm’s time records and questioned several six-figure expenses, including $176,000 for meals, hotel and travel and $105,000 for photocopying.
“That’s 25 cents a page using your own office copy machine,” Denver attorney Curtis Kennedy, representing the retirees, said Tuesday after the hearing. “Don’t we at least get a discount for volume? Why not 5 cents a page?”
…[L]ast month, the association filed its objections over attorney fees, complaining that the more than $16.3 million Lerach had requested would leave just $33 million to be distributed among the thousands of plaintiff shareholders they represented….
[Kennedy] said the blanket $15 million contingency award represented 2.3 times what the plaintiff lawyers actually put into the case. Paralegal time alone would be compensated at the rate of more than $400 an hour.
“Times are changing,” he told the judge. “Shareholders are beginning to feel they need to step up and object…that these attorney fees are getting out of hand.”
How often will they feel it worth objecting if, as here, they get the back of the judge’s hand for their troubles? (John Accola, Rocky Mountain News, Aug. 31).
Lerach to Google: cough up bettor bucks
“Lerach Coughlin Stoia & Robbins …filed a class action against Yahoo Inc., Google Inc. and 10 other Internet search engines that claims they have been promoting illegal gambling on their Web sites and requests that they fork over the ad revenue. The complaint, filed Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court, requests that the search engines put revenue from advertising Internet gambling into a fund that would provide restitution to California Indian Tribes or other licensed gambling businesses in California. The complaint says money in the fund would also go to the spouses of gamblers who have had community property taken away as a result of illegal gambling and to the state treasury.” (Brenda Sandburg, “Casino Come-Ons Return Bad Result for Search Sites”, The Recorder, Aug. 5; David Legard, “Gambling lawsuit filed against top Web content sites”, IDG/Computerworld, Aug. 4). For questions about the legality of accepting advertising from offshore casinos, see Apr. 21. Earlier lawsuits have gone after credit card companies for facilitating offshore gambling transactions (see Dec. 7, 1999), but a Lerach attorney said this was the first suit against search engines.