Business Development

Labaton Sucharow agrees to return $4.8M in attorney fees after attorney finder fee is revealed

Labaton Sucharow has agreed to return $4.8 million in attorney fees to plaintiffs and other law firms in a securities class action against State Street Corp. The payment resolves allegations of double billing and a failure to disclose a $4.1 million finder fee to a lawyer who helped introduce Labaton…

Oct 11, 2018 10:14 AM CDT

Lawyer in Arkansas same-sex marriage case sues co-counsel, says he denigrated her work

A lawyer who successfully sought to overturn Arkansas’ gay-marriage ban has filed a defamation suit against her co-counsel that argues he denigrated her work and wrongly accused her of inflating her work hours.

Oct 11, 2018 9:00 AM CDT

Former law firm of disbarred lawyer Stan Chesley agrees to pay $19M for fee overcharges

A dissolved Ohio law firm once owned by mass-torts lawyer Stanley Chesley has agreed to pay fen-phen diet-drug litigants $19.1 million to resolve their unjust enrichment claims stemming from attorney fee overcharges in the mass-tort case. The agreed judgment signed Oct. 3 by U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland is part…

Oct 9, 2018 3:15 PM CDT

‘Outrageously excessive’ requests for attorney fees can be altogether denied, 3rd Circuit says

A federal appeals court has upheld a federal judge’s decision to deny as “grossly excessive” a request for more than $900,000 in attorney fees based on a $100,000 punitive award. When a request under a fee-shifting statute is “outrageously excessive,” a judge may deny the award altogether if the statute…

Sep 17, 2018 6:05 AM CDT

GoFundMe page raises cash for Michael Cohen’s legal fees, despite Lanny Davis blunder

A GoFundMe page for Michael Cohen’s legal fees had raised more than $135,000 by Thursday morning even though Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, gave an incorrect domain name in early television interviews that led people to a website for President Donald Trump. The GoFundMe page is labeled Michael Cohen Truth Fund,…

Aug 23, 2018 8:10 AM CDT

Judge is ‘almost haunted’ by Greenberg Traurig fee request, says it’s not ‘mere Monopoly money’

A judge in Manhattan has rejected a $464,000 fee request by Greenberg Traurig in an opinion that faulted the law firm for “gold plated lawyering” in a relatively straightforward case.

Jul 19, 2018 7:05 AM CDT

Special master who reviewed billing in $300M case recommends significant refund, judge says

A federal judge has directed pension fund officials to consider whether they want to drop their law firm, Labaton Sucharow, after a contentious hearing Wednesday in which he said the firm’s conduct has been called into question in the class action against State Street Bank.

Jun 4, 2018 7:05 AM CDT

Wisconsin law requires all litigation funding arrangements to be disclosed

Legislation signed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker last week requires all third-party litigation funding deals to be disclosed—even if a discovery request has not been made for that information.

Apr 10, 2018 10:45 AM CDT

Billing client in minimum 15-minute increments wasn’t abusive, Wyoming Supreme Court says

A law firm that routinely billed a longtime client in 15-minute increments isn’t required to reduce its legal tab, the Wyoming Supreme Court has ruled.

Mar 29, 2018 8:00 AM CDT

Defunct Heller firm not entitled to claw back fees from exiting partners, California high court says

The dissolved Heller Ehrman law firm isn’t entitled to claw back hourly fees charged in pending cases after departing partners jumped to new law firms, according to the California Supreme Court. The high court ruled on Monday at the request of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.…

Mar 5, 2018 3:45 PM CST

Unhappy with 53 law firms participating in case, judge appoints special master to review legal bills

A federal judge in California last week criticized two lawyers for bringing an additional 49 law firms into a data-breach case, raising to 53 the total number of firms representing the plaintiffs. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said she planned to hire a special master to go through the billing…

Feb 7, 2018 8:00 AM CST

ABA urges Federal Circuit not to include attorney fees in patent case ‘expenses’

The American Bar Association is urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit not to include the government’s attorney fees when awarding “all expenses of the proceedings” to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The ABA filed an amicus brief in NantKwest v. Joseph Matal, urging the full Federal Circuit to overturn a split decision of a three-judge panel.

Jan 24, 2018 7:30 AM CST

Legal secretary is awarded $277K in attorney fees in her overtime suit against her former law firm

A Los Angeles judge on Monday awarded $277,000 in attorney fees to a former legal secretary who prevailed on her claim that the law firm she once worked for failed to pay overtime. Noemi Bernal had been awarded more than $91,000 on the wage claim against J.J. Little & Associates,…

Nov 28, 2017 1:06 PM CST

Law firm billed criminal defendants for prosecution fees; building-code violation brings $31K bill

Building-code violators in two California municipalities are being billed for their own criminal prosecutions after the cities hired a law firm and authorized it to bill defendants for its prosecution services. The towns of Coachella and Indio hired the law firm Silver & Wright, which bills not only for its…

Nov 20, 2017 12:12 PM CST

Alternative fee arrangements have plateaued, survey author says

Two surveys of in-house counsel have drawn similar conclusions: There is some inertia in their use of alternative fees to control law firm costs.

Oct 30, 2017 7:25 AM CDT