Judge says ex-attorney must help pay $42M judgment to plaintiffs in fen-phen litigation

Add another ex-lawyer to the group of disbarred personal injury attorneys responsible for paying a $42 million judgment over fees plundered from a $200 million settlement to plaintiffs in fen-phen diet drug litigation. After nearly a decade of court battle, a Kentucky judge ruled earlier this week that former Cincinnati…

Aug 5, 2014 8:35 PM CDT

Gun owners are looking to join prepaid legal defense plans

Aug 1, 2014 9:09 AM CDT

Law firm gets $41K in public records case over dashcam, is suing again to find out what city spent

An Oklahoma city must pay its opponent’s $41,000 legal bill in an open-records case over police dashcam footage. Costs of a little less than $1,400 were included in the award to Ward & Lee by a Rogers County judge on Friday, reports the Claremore World. The law firm had sought…

Jul 29, 2014 2:45 PM CDT

Northwestern sues ex-employee, says author took book she was paid to write on infamous murder case

A former part-time employee and published author has been sued by Northwestern University for copyright infringement. Northwestern contends in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday that Nina Barrett was paid, while working on a library fellowship, to write about a notorious 1924 murder by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and…

Jul 24, 2014 8:25 PM CDT

2 lawyers who rejected $9.5M attorney fee in Prempro case will get $21.8M

Two lead lawyers in long-running litigation over Pfizer’s Inc.’s Prempro menopause drug have more than doubled their own payout by challenging a plan to allocate them less than $10 million of a $62 million common-benefit fund for attorney fees. Federal court filings in Little Rock, Arkansas, say fellow plaintiffs lawyers…

Jul 23, 2014 8:20 PM CDT

Plaintiffs lawyers fight ‘loser-pays’ bylaw adopted in middle of shareholder suit

A shareholder suit over $2.5 million in bonuses paid to executives of a pharmaceutical company is the latest battleground in an ongoing fight over a new corporate “loser-pays” bylaw that may have gotten a green light from the Delaware Supreme Court earlier this year. The bylaw at issue in the…

Jul 22, 2014 4:25 PM CDT

PayPal to refund donations made for dad’s defense in murder case over son’s hot-car death

An online efforts to raise funds for the legal defense of a Georgia father charged in a controversial murder case over the death of his young son in a hot car has been suspended, and the $22,000 already donated will be refunded. A PayPal spokeswoman told the Associated Press it…

Jul 11, 2014 4:14 PM CDT

When letting a bill go unpaid can be good for business

Jul 1, 2014 8:20 AM CDT

Samsung and Quinn Emanuel must pay $2M for revealing ‘attorneys’ eyes only’ info, judge rules

A major law firm and its client must pay a patent litigation opponent more than $2 million in legal fees and costs, a federal judge in California has ruled. The award covers the expense of litigating a sanctions motion and discovery dispute over the revelation of “attorneys’ eyes only” information…

Jun 24, 2014 6:10 PM CDT

Federal court clerk, 2 techs create e-billing system to speed payment to defense lawyers nationwide

A new computerized billing system expected to speed payment to indigent defense lawyers is being adopted at federal courthouses throughout the country thanks to a chief deputy clerk and two technicians at the federal courthouse in Las Vegas. Thinking there had to be a better way than the cumbersome manual…

Jun 24, 2014 3:25 PM CDT

Judge rejects ‘absurd’ claim by ex-clients, awards $500K in legal fees, blasts new counsel

A Pennsylvania law firm was, by contract, entitled to a $500,000 legal fee for representing the parents of a therapist killed in a 2012 shooting rampage, in a lawsuit against a psychiatric hospital. But Farrell & Reisinger agreed to take $350,000, after the case settled the same year for $1.5…

Jun 24, 2014 2:45 PM CDT

LA to pay $215K to black man ejected and cited after wearing Ku Klux Klan hood to public meeting

The city of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $215,000 to a man who was kicked out of a governmental meeting in 2011 after wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood and a T-shirt with a racial slur and being cited for disturbing a public assembly. Although the case against Michael…

Jun 16, 2014 6:50 PM CDT

New bill could nix top Delaware court’s OK of loser-pays rule for attorney fees in corporate cases

With unusual speed, a bill was drafted by Delaware lawyers and introduced in the state legislature that could negate a state supreme court ruling last month approving a corporate fee-shifting bylaw affecting shareholder litigation. The bylaw required losing plaintiffs to cover the company’s attorney fees and costs for corporate litigation…

Jun 10, 2014 5:45 PM CDT

Top NY court to hear arguments on unfinished-business claims concerning failed law firms

When a law firm fails, is its unfinished business property that can be distributed by a bankruptcy trustee? That is the question on which New York’s highest court will hear arguments Wednesday, at the request of a federal appeals court, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports. After two federal…

Jun 2, 2014 4:50 PM CDT

Delaware decision could spur fee-shifting bylaws, putting a damper on shareholder suits

The Delaware Supreme Court has upheld a fee-shifting provision in a corporate bylaw that might be adopted by other corporations to make shareholder suits more risky. The May 8 decision (PDF) addressed a federal court’s certified questions about a bylaw adopted by a private company that shifts attorney fees and…

May 20, 2014 10:45 AM CDT