Lawyer wins latest round in dog rescue dispute; federal judge awards $50K in attorney fees

A lawyer who oversees a dog shelter in Pennsylvania has won the latest round in a dispute over conditions at the Sixth Angel Shepherd Rescue Inc. A federal judge in Philadelphia has awarded attorney Terry Silva over $50,000 in attorney fees and costs in the successful civil rights suit she…

Sep 25, 2013 4:05 PM CDT

Judge won’t allow $200 hourly fee for newbie associate who worked on case partly as law clerk

A federal judge in Buffalo, N.Y., has slashed an attorney fee request by nearly $60,000 in a class action filed on behalf of exotic dancers. Chief U.S. District Judge William Skretny cut the fee request for nearly $138,000 to about $79,000, the New York Law Journal reports. The law firm…

Sep 23, 2013 6:43 PM CDT

How much has Weil Gotshal earned in Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy?

How much has Lehman Brothers Holdings paid to lawyers and other bankruptcy professionals since it’s 2008 Chapter 11 filing? More than $2 billion, Bloomberg News reports, with almost $500 million going to Lehman counsel Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Lehman creditors are set to get 18 cents on the dollar by…

Sep 11, 2013 6:48 PM CDT

Radio station not liable for worker’s $807K legal bill in water-drinking contest death case

A man who was sued by the survivors of a woman who died of water intoxication after participating in a California radio station’s “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest was eventually dismissed from the case against his employer. But not before he racked up a $807,421 legal bill, which…

Sep 4, 2013 10:30 PM CDT

10th Circuit says judge erred in denying payment to lawyer who challenged execution method

An Oklahoma lawyer who mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge to the method of execution eventually used on his client in a death-penalty case is entitled to be paid for his time, a federal appeals court has ruled. Reversing a federal district court’s decision not to award attorney fees to James…

Sep 4, 2013 7:55 PM CDT

Top court reinstates $42M award against 3 lawyers who plundered $200M fen-phen settlement

After six years of litigation, it appears that over 430 plaintiffs are back on track to collect a $42 million verdict against three lawyers who took more than their fair share of attorney’s fees from a $200 million settlement of diet-drug litigation. Reversing an intermediate appeals court, which had ruled…

Aug 30, 2013 12:10 PM CDT

Lawyers in multiple states face inquiry, or worse, over legal fees in mortgage foreclosure matters

Attorneys in multiple states are in the news due to alleged violation of rules concerning the fees they charged clients seeking mortgage modifications or concerns that they may have used questionable billing practices while representing lenders in foreclosure cases. In California, attorney Stephen Siringoringo was ordered by the State Bar…

Aug 9, 2013 10:30 AM CDT

Judge won’t enforce ‘usurious’ retainer pact, blasts law firm for ‘condescending’ tone of filings

Finding that a law firm’s retainer agreement in a divorce case was “usurious” and calling its billing practices “facially outrageous and certainly bereft of reasonableness,” a New York judge on Thursday refused to vacate his earlier ruling dismissing the firm’s lawsuit seeking to collect about $53,000 from a former client.…

Aug 8, 2013 3:20 PM CDT

Judge orders EEOC to pay $4.7M in legal fees in Jenner & Block case

In the latest chapter of a litigation saga that has proven expensive for the feds, Jenner & Block has won what could be a record $4.7 million in attorney fees and costs from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. At issue was an employment discrimination case brought by the EEOC against…

Aug 6, 2013 8:31 PM CDT

Slashing $26M in legal fees from Citigroup case, judge cites $550/hr charge for $15/hr contract work

A federal judge has slashed by 27 percent the attorney fees awarded to the winning lawyers in a $590 million settlement of a Citigroup Inc. securities class action because of “waste and inefficiency” and billable hourly rates that were “significantly inflated.” Even after the cut, lead plaintiffs counsel Kirby McInerney…

Aug 1, 2013 6:05 PM CDT

Product manager helps partners build better client budgets. Is that revolutionary?

Aug 1, 2013 7:10 AM CDT

State ordered to pay $75K legal-fee award to PETA as it protests ban on New Year possum-drop

Even though it had been ordered by a North Carolina administrative law judge to stop issuing a temporary permit that allowed a Brasstown business to capture a wild possum and lower the animal, in a clear plastic box, to the ground at midnight on New Year’s Eve, a state agency…

Jul 30, 2013 8:35 PM CDT

Ex-clients can seek emotional distress damages in legal malpractice case, top state court says

Iowa’s top court has, for the first time, OK’d potential emotional distress damages in a legal malpractice case. An immigration lawyer should have known that his inaccurate advice could cause severe emotional distress to his clients, an Ecuadorean couple who were separated from their children for a decade after following…

Jul 22, 2013 10:15 PM CDT

Businessman charged in sex-tourism case files $10M malpractice suit against elite civil lawyers

A former client jailed in Mexico as he awaits extradition to the U.S. in a sex-tourism and child-pornography case has sued two elite San Francisco lawyers who previously represented him in civil litigation for claimed malpractice. Businessman Thomas White contends that his then-lawyers, Nanci Clarence and Kate Dyer, did not…

Jul 22, 2013 7:35 PM CDT

Colorado foreclosure lawyer must turn over documents in bill-padding probe

A Colorado judge has ordered a lawyer to turn over documents in a state investigation of whether, among other questionable billing practices, some foreclosure lawyers have been padding their bills by inflating their expenses, the Denver Post reports. Under the ruling Thursday by Denver District Court Judge Edward Bronfin, attorney…

Jul 12, 2013 8:40 PM CDT