Lawyers Lower Fees After Judge Rejects 9/11 Settlement
In an effort to salvage a major settlement, lawyers representing thousands of World Trade Center ground zero workers have agreed to lower their requested legal fees.
The law firm Worby Groner Edelman & Napoli Bern said it will cap its rate at 20 percent, or $115 million, after a U.S. District judge objected to the law firm’s potential take of more than a third of the $657 million settlement, reports the New York Daily News and Eric Turkewitz’s New York Personal Injury Law Blog.
“Our fees will be reduced under this court’s insistence that it would limit those fees to an even greater degree than we have voluntarily agreed to do,” the firm stated in a letter (PDF provided by New York Personal Injury Law Blog) to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing the case.
“We have … been influenced by the truly disheartening pressures visited upon us by the media and our own clients, both of whom seem to believe that we should have simply donated our time for these past seven years.”
The remainder of the settlement would be split among nearly 10,000 sickened workers that claim the inhalation of toxic trade center ash may have led to diseases ranging from asthma to cancer.
Also see:
The Associated Press: “Lawyers Offer to Reduce Fees in 9/11 Health Case”
Updated at 1:57 p.m. CST to include link to earlier coverage by Eric Turkewitz’s New York Personal Injury Law Blog.
