Client survey shows nearly two-thirds are using alternative fee arrangements

Aug 1, 2015 2:10 AM CDT

Merchants say lawyer should lose $32M fee award over alleged email contact with opposing counsel

So far, the fallout from an alleged $5 million scheme by an attorney and her husband to defraud two law firms and a client includes a lost BigLaw partnership and wire fraud conspiracy charges against both spouses. Now it appears that email between Keila Ravelo and another lawyer who is…

Jul 28, 2015 4:02 PM CDT

Law firm submits latest $40M bill in Madoff case, cites $553M recovery

Legal fees continue to add up for the Baker & Hostetler team in charge of liquidating assets of convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff’s purported investment firm. Tapped for the job of liquidation trustee at the end of 2008, law firm partner Irving Picard submitted his latest bill, for $40.1 million,…

Jul 24, 2015 11:20 AM CDT

Judge blasts class action firm for $5M fee maneuver; it now gets zilch

A California judge has barred payment of attorney fees to a class action firm after finding it “attempted to arrogate to itself more than $5 million in class action attorneys’ fees without court approval.” Judge Mary Wiss of San Francisco denied fees to the Initiative Legal Group in a July…

Jul 21, 2015 9:21 AM CDT

Federal magistrate awards nearly $46M in legal fees in NCAA athlete-pay case

After a federal district court’s ruling last year that a ban on paying college athletes for using their names and images violates antitrust law, a magistrate judge has awarded nearly $46 million in attorney fees and costs to the lawyers for the plaintiffs. The NCAA had argued that the lawyers…

Jul 14, 2015 3:00 PM CDT

5th Circuit: Feds must pay $500K in attorney fees to defendant company for bad faith in FLSA case

Calling the U.S. Department of Labor’s conduct in an employment case baseless and vindictive, a federal appeals court is requiring the government to pay some $500,000 in attorney fees to the defendant company under a bad-faith provision of the Equal Access to Justice Act. “It is often better to acknowledge…

Jul 8, 2015 12:55 PM CDT

Delaware bans bylaws imposing legal fees on plaintiffs in losing shareholder litigation

A law banning corporate bylaws that impose a hefty price on investors who file unsuccessful shareholder derivative suits has been signed by Delaware’s governor. It prohibits companies from requiring plaintiffs in such cases to pay the company’s attorney fees. However, in a nod to disappointed companies, the new law does…

Jun 25, 2015 3:15 PM CDT

Judge says Ellen Pao owes $276K to venture capital firm in sex-discrimination case

Former BigLaw associate Ellen Pao not only lost her sex-discrimination trial against a storied venture capital firm but refused a $1 million pretrial settlement offer. So she owes Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers reimbursement for the firm’s costs and, potentially, attorney fees as well. However, a San Francisco Superior Court…

Jun 19, 2015 12:42 PM CDT

Judge removed by top state court for long-ago conduct in class action, before she took the bench

A Florida judge has been removed from office for conduct she engaged in more than a decade ago, as a practicing attorney, before she took the bench. Agreeing with a Judicial Qualifications Commission panel that removal was the proper penalty, the state supreme court ruled in a Thursday opinion (PDF)…

Jun 18, 2015 3:40 PM CDT

Judge cuts $2.4M ‘Cadillac Escalade’ legal fee bid by Beastie Boys, OKs $700K ‘Honda Civic’ award

Equating a bid by the Beastie Boys for reimbursement of a claimed $2.4 million in legal fees to a Cadillac Escalade, a federal judge in New York on Monday cut the award to a more reasonable “Honda Civic” version. U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer awarded the iconic hip-hop group only…

Jun 16, 2015 4:30 PM CDT

Law firms can’t collect fees for defending bankruptcy fee applications, Supreme Court rules

Law firms are not entitled to fee awards for the time spent defending fee applications in U.S. bankruptcy court, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion (PDF), joined in full by four justices and in part by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The opinion is…

Jun 15, 2015 9:46 AM CDT

Federal Circuit: US must pay attorney’s fee to lawyer who took veteran’s case 20 years ago

Nearly 20 years after he agreed to represent a U.S. military veteran in a disability case, a Maine lawyer has gotten a definitive answer about his 20-percent contingent attorney fee. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Tuesday ruled that the feds owe attorney Francis Jackson…

Jun 3, 2015 4:25 PM CDT

New Innovation Act, aimed at ‘patent trolls,’ would require more details in infringement complaints

Jun 1, 2015 3:40 AM CDT

2nd Circuit nixes Apple campaign to boot BigLaw partner as court-appointed monitor in e-book case

A federal appeals court has nixed a campaign by Apple Inc. to replace a monitor appointed by a federal judge to oversee the company’s compliance with her orders in e-book antitrust litigation. “This appeal touches upon the scope of a district court’s power under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 53…

May 28, 2015 2:20 PM CDT

$200K sanction could close my law firm, lawyer tells court

A Minneapolis lawyer is facing a double hit in a civil suit accusing his client of defrauding auto buyers in the former Soviet Union. Minneapolis lawyer Boris Parker says the client, Sergey Kapustin, owes him $125,000 in unpaid fees. Now Parker is fighting a potential $200,000 sanction for negotiating a…

May 26, 2015 6:15 AM CDT