Business Development

$72M payday for 2 small law firms OK’d by judge

Citing “true contingency risk,” a Delaware Court of Chancery judge on Wednesday OK’d a $72.5 million attorney’s fees payment to two small law firms that represented the plaintiffs in a shareholder suit against a videogame maker. The settlement approved by Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster also included a $275 million…

May 21, 2015 12:15 PM CDT

Two lawyers are convicted of extortion for arrest threat in bid to collect fee

Two Tennessee lawyers have been convicted of extortion for threatening a client with an arrest for theft of services in a bid to collect $50,000 in legal fees. Jurors in Clarksville, Tennessee, deliberated for two days before convicting the lawyers, Fletcher Long and Carrie Gasaway, the Leaf-Chronicle reports. Long is…

May 13, 2015 11:18 AM CDT

6th Circuit: Federal judge abused discretion by refusing to let law firm withdraw in civil case

A federal district court abused its discretion by refusing to allow a Michigan law firm to withdraw from representing the defendant in a civil battery case, a federal appeals court has ruled. At issue was a lawsuit filed by former Lakewood High School students seeking damages for alleged sexual assaults…

May 8, 2015 9:45 AM CDT

6th Circuit OKs sanctions for filing frivolous suit, may add sanctions for filing frivolous appeal

In a Friday ruling, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld trial-court sanctions imposed on a former corporate officer and senior engineer for filing a frivolous False Claims Act lawsuit. But in addition to OKing the sanctions against ex-Lambda Research employee Terry Jacobs and his trial attorney James DeRoche,…

May 6, 2015 9:35 AM CDT

7th Circuit: Law firm doesn’t owe fired PI attorney bonuses, due to terms of compensation pact

After more than five years of litigation, a personal injury lawyer has lost his fight to collect on bonuses he claimed his former law firm employer owed him on breast-implant cases for which payment was received after he was fired. The motive for his 2007 termination was to avoid paying…

May 5, 2015 2:15 PM CDT

Feds go electronic on payments for indigent representation

Thanks to a federal clerk tired of a deluge of paperwork, lawyers for low-income federal defendants are beginning to use a new electronic payment system that allows them to be paid more quickly. The Criminal Justice Act eVoucher system saves attorneys the headache of running down fees for service the…

May 1, 2015 6:50 AM CDT

Litigant’s F-word filing tells ‘geezer’ judge just what she thinks of his ‘blah, blah, blah’ finding

A litigant who was disgusted over the dismissal of most of her claims in a $10 billion federal lawsuit let the judge know just what she thought of him in a legal filing titled “Notice to f*ck this court and everything it stands for.” The pro se plaintiff, Tamah Jada…

Apr 27, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Mom files federal civil rights suit in parental fight over circumcision of boy, 4

Held in contempt of court and in hiding with her 4-year-old son because she doesn’t want him circumcised, a Florida mom started raising funds for her legal fees via social media last month. Now Heather Hironimus has filed a federal civil rights suit on the child’s behalf, contending that he…

Apr 14, 2015 4:20 PM CDT

Employer ordered to pay $270K plus $2.1M in attorney’s fees, federal judge rules

A federal judge has ordered a Minnesota employer to pay a monster $2.1 million in legal fees for work by its opposing counsel in an employment discrimination case. That’s in addition to the $100,000 for emotional distress and another $170,000, representing double the amount of lost wages, owed to the…

Apr 14, 2015 12:20 PM CDT

Amid battle over bill banning fee-shifting bylaws in Delaware, legal experts point to loophole

Among a number of proposed changes in Delaware corporate law, a bill that would ban companies from enacting fee-shifting bylaws is the most controversial. Authorized by a state supreme court decision last year, such bylaws, if they are widely adopted, potentially could significantly curtail shareholder derivative litigation in the state…

Apr 8, 2015 1:15 PM CDT

Legal costs exceed $100 per student at some public schools; $23 is billed for lawyer’s phone message

Though Chicago-area school districts spend an average of $31 per student on legal bills for private lawyers, about 10 percent of the school districts spend more than $100 a student, a newspaper’s analysis has found. School superintendents maintain that legal spending helps avoid costly lawsuits, aids in contract negotiations and…

Apr 7, 2015 8:50 AM CDT

Nursing homes ask court to nix Cohen Milstein probe and void contingency-fee pact with state AG

Saying that Pennsylvania’s state health department has exclusive authority over the regulation of nursing homes, a group of 19 facilities has sued the state attorney general over an ongoing probe by a private law firm. Its Commonwealth Court petition seeks to void a contingency-fee agreement between the AG’s office and…

Apr 6, 2015 11:20 AM CDT

Lawyer seeks $3M in damages from ex-boyfriend, for both legal fees and palimony

A Manhattan lawyer is seeking $3 million from a former client, who was also her longtime boyfriend. Christine Anderson represented Dr. G. Peta Carrera in a 1990 sexual-molestation lawsuit filed against him by a former patient, according to the New York Daily News. Anderson, 70, said she didn’t establish her…

Apr 3, 2015 2:14 PM CDT

Judge calls $600K legal fee in fast-track $1.5M settlement for woman punched by cop ‘unconscionable’

Noting that it took only about three months for a California lawyer to get a $1.5 million settlement concerning police conduct videotaped by a passing motorist, a federal judge last week described the attorney’s fee of over $600,000 charged by lawyer Caree Harper as “unconscionable.” However, although U.S. District Judge…

Mar 24, 2015 10:40 AM CDT

Ex-client sues law firm, says it withheld ‘fugly’ assessment of $12M case while billing $1.3M

Eager to rack up attorney’s fees, a California law firm withheld from a client school district its assessment of a breach of contract case as “fugly” and ran up $1.3 million in legal bills instead of trying to settle, a malpractice suit says. Filed Tuesday, the San Diego Superior Court…

Mar 19, 2015 1:00 PM CDT