Business Development

Pa. Lawyer Gets 33 Months for Embezzling Money From Clients Under Guise of Legal Fees

A suspended Pennsylvania lawyer has been sentenced to a 33-month federal prison term for embezzling more than $100,000 from clients. Kenneth Reidenbach, 61, was convicted last year of multiple felonies including bankruptcy fraud concerning money allegedly taken from four bankruptcy and divorce clients, under the guise of attorney’s fees, between…

Nov 5, 2012 4:58 PM CST

Utah AG Takes Stand re Unpaid $5.6M Judgment, Expresses Relief at Not Being Jailed

The top law enforcement official in Utah expressed relief Friday that a state court judge didn’t jail him for contempt months after a deadline expired for paying a $5.6 million court-ordered bill for services provided by a Salt Lake City accountant, lawyers and others responsible for liquidating a communal land…

Nov 2, 2012 9:41 PM CDT

Fla. Judge Strikes New Statute Requiring Courts to Pay Cost Overruns for Murder Defense Legal Fees

A Florida judge has stricken as unconstitutional a new law requiring courts to pay, out of their own funds, for the cost of court-appointed private attorneys to represent defendants in murder and racketeering cases, once the legal fees exceed the annual amounts budgeted for this purpose by the state legislature.…

Oct 29, 2012 9:55 PM CDT

A Possibly Big Payday Awaits Two Law Firms Suing on Behalf of US Regulator

Two law firms could collect hundreds of millions of dollars in contingency fees as result of lawsuits filed on behalf of a U.S. regulator. The two law firms are Kellogg Huber Hansen Todd Evans & Figel and Korein Tillery, the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) reports. They represent the National…

Oct 25, 2012 4:09 PM CDT

NY Law Firms Aggressively Pursue Fees; Up to Seven Suits Filed Weekly in Manhattan

New York law firms are getting fed up with uncollected fees, and they are doing something about it. Increasingly the firms are suing their clients and risking a malpractice counterclaim, the New York Law Journal reports. In the last few months, between three and seven fee suits were filed on…

Oct 23, 2012 12:17 PM CDT

Bancroft Has Billed Nearly $1.5M for DOMA Defense

Former Solicitor General Paul Clement and his law firm have charged House Republicans nearly $1.5 million to defend the Defense of Marriage Act for the past two years. House Democrats released figures this week showing the charges by the Bancroft law firm, according to The BLT: The Blog of Legal…

Oct 22, 2012 12:39 PM CDT

Law Firm Seeks 12.5 Percent Share of Ex-Banker Birkenfeld’s $104M IRS Whistleblower Award

A Washington, D.C., law firm retained by Bradley Birkenfeld to help him tell U.S. authorities how a Swiss bank was aiding Americans in evading taxes is now seeking a 12.5 percent of his $104 million whistleblower award from the Internal Revenue Service. The former employee of UBS AG, the biggest…

Oct 17, 2012 4:30 PM CDT

DC AG Criticizes ‘Vituperative Rhetoric’ in Judge Lamberth’s ‘Orwellian World’ Opinion

The District of Columbia’s Office of the Attorney General is taking issue with a federal judge’s scathing opinion finding that city attorneys violated a discovery order. In a motion filed last Friday, District of Columbia Attorney General Irvin Nathan ramps up the war of words, accusing U.S. District Judge Royce…

Oct 17, 2012 10:30 AM CDT

Some Law Firms Are Quoting ‘Suicidal Prices,’ with Possibility of More Dissolutions, Consultant Says

Corrected: More law firms are quoting “suicidal prices” for legal work just to get the business, a law firm consultant says. Bruce MacEwen, who writes at Adam Smith, Esq., tells Bloomberg Law that an increasing number of firms are offering cut-rate fees to keep their lawyers occupied. The legal industry…

Oct 15, 2012 11:15 AM CDT

Ethics Experts Question Bank of America’s New Tactic for Reducing Its Legal Fees

Ethics experts are raising questions about a new plan by Bank of America to win reductions in its legal fees from outside law firms. The bank is seeking a credit on its annual legal fees based on the amount of customer business it sends to its preferred provider law firms,…

Oct 11, 2012 11:31 AM CDT

Homeowners Who Spent $220K in Legal Fees to Fight $2K HOA Lawn Bill Win Court Case After 11 Years

Fighting a $2,212 bill for lawn resodding from their homeowner association seemed, to a Florida couple, like the thing to do. But that was more than a decade ago, and it remains to be seen whether Ed and Billye Simmons, who have prevailed in their court case after 11 years…

Oct 1, 2012 4:16 PM CDT

Law Firm Pricing Directors Suggest Alternative Fee Strategies, Call for Focus on Profit, Not Hours

Many law firms might be surprised to find that corporate clients have better legal billing analytics than they do. That should change, according to a new breed of law firm executives known as pricing directors. As a starting point for creating new “value”-based billing models, law firms should know how…

Sep 28, 2012 5:27 PM CDT

Former Programmer Accused of Stealing Source Code Wants Goldman Sachs to Pay $2.4M Legal Fees

A former computer programmer for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. who has now been charged in state court in Manhattan related to his alleged theft of confidential source code from his ex-employer to use in a new job has filed suit seeking over $2.4 million in legal fees. Sergey Aleynikov says…

Sep 26, 2012 8:07 PM CDT

2 Law Firms Poised to Collect $300M Del. Chancery Attorney’s Fee Award, Plus $212K Daily Interest

A well-known Wilmington, Del., law firm and its Pennsylvania-based co-counsel are poised to collect one of the biggest legal-fee awards ever made in a securities class action, after the Delaware Supreme Court on Friday rejected a motion for reargument of the massive payout, which at last report totaled about $305…

Sep 24, 2012 4:46 PM CDT

Lawyer Fights Own Fee Dispute Simultaneously with PI Client’s Case, Earns Over $1.5M, Is Disbarred

A New Hampshire lawyer who fought hard for his own claimed $2 million fee at the same time he was seeking an $11 million settlement on behalf of a paralyzed personal injury client earned a fee of over $1.5 million. But Timothy O’Meara was also disbarred by the state supreme…

Sep 18, 2012 6:45 PM CDT