Wisconsin considers curbing “one-way” attorney fees
American legislatures since the 1970s have widely employed “one-way” fee provisions — under which courts award fees to prevailing plaintiffs, but not to prevailing defendants — as a way of encouraging...
View ArticleNovember 26 roundup
“Ohio Attorney Sues Over Misleading Emails, Even Though He Wasn’t Misled” [Chris Danzig, Above the Law] Feds say new EPA-ordered fuel economy standards could add $2000 to price of new car [C.J....
View ArticleGulf spill claimants who didn’t hire lawyers will have to pay them anyway
“Oil giant BP’s $20bn (£13bn) fund to compensate those hit by the Gulf of Mexico spill has been frozen, following a court order that all claimants must share the cost of the legal team leading the...
View ArticleWhen federal defendants settle lawsuits
Jenna Greene reports in the National Law Journal (reg) on the Judgment Fund, an obscure entity within the federal government that last year paid to settle more than 5,000 lawsuits against federal...
View ArticleClarifying Florida lawyers’ position
According to what seems to be the sense of many in the Florida legal profession, doctors and their patients should not have the right to enter enforceable arbitration agreements before the fact to...
View ArticleCook County jail lockdown settlement
“The Cook County Board on Tuesday agreed to pay more than $1 million in taxpayer money to settle a federal lawsuit brought by female County Jail inmates who said their civil rights were violated during...
View ArticleJune 4 roundup
“Man cited for littering after cash to panhandler hits ground” [USA Today] AIG and sunshine: “Spitzer’s Loose Public Talk and Private Emails” [Lawrence Cunningham, Concurring Opinions] Mississippi...
View ArticleMississippi AG transparency
Peeking under the Hood, cont’d: Mississippi has finally passed sunshine legislation exposing to public scrutiny dealings of its attorney general with outside law firms, which can make large sums in...
View Article“How Many Law Firms Does It Take To Sue An Egg Company? 34, Apparently”
“A federal judge in Philadelphia has done what every judge in a class action should do: She required each law firm involved in a $25 million antitrust settlement to document exactly how much time they...
View Article“Fee Request Found ‘Grossly Inflated’ Denied in Entirety”
“Four law firms that submitted a “grossly inflated” $2.7 million fee request after winning $12,500 for their client should go away empty-handed, a federal judge has ruled. Eastern District Judge Joanna...
View ArticleKentucky disbars Stan Chesley
We told you the Kentucky fen-phen scandal — which we’ve been covering since 2005 — was serious. Now it’s resulted in the permanent revocation of the Kentucky license to practice of famed “Master of...
View Article“Churn that bill, baby”
Extraordinary emails bolster a client’s case that mega-law firm DLA Piper wasn’t holding its legal billings to a needed minimum. [New York Times "DealBook"] Tweet Tags: attorneys' fees, lawyers “Churn...
View Article“Animal rights groups to pay attorney fees after losing suit against Ringling...
Although our system is (alas) set up to make it very difficult for defendants to recover legal fees from losing plaintiffs, it is not too surprising that this case would be an exception given a judge’s...
View Article“Churn that bill, baby” dispute settles
Law firm DLA Piper has now settled an overbilling dispute with a dissatisfied client, while decrying “e-mail humor.” [NYT DealBook, earlier] Tweet Tags: attorneys' fees “Churn that bill, baby” dispute...
View ArticleAttorneys’ fees roundup
We’re worth it: lawyers in credit card case want judge to award them $720 million [Alison Frankel, Reuters] Johnson & Johnson will fight $181 million payday for private lawyers in Arkansas...
View ArticleFarm-bias lawyers get $90.8 million
In April, an extensive New York Times investigation by Sharon Lafreniere confirmed and extended what writers associated with the late Andrew Breitbart had been charging for more than two years: the...
View ArticleColorado foreclosure uproar could go national
“At the risk of losing their homes if they didn’t, scores of Colorado homeowners struggling to avoid foreclosure in the past year were each forced to pay hundreds of dollars in lawyer charges for...
View ArticleLabor and employment roundup
“Is the main effect of the minimum wage on job growth?” [Tyler Cowen] Minimum wage is transitional wage; most workers who receive it will earn higher rate in the next year if they stay employed [same]...
View Article…and the right to collect legal fees
The Washington Post splashes an investigative story about the tax lien business, in which outsiders buy up delinquent municipal property tax liens sometimes amounting to mere hundreds of dollars, then...
View ArticleStarbucks’ way of discouraging class actions?
Insist that class counsel’s attorneys’ fees be handled separately from the negotiation of relief to the class — and then don’t roll over for those fees the way defendants usually do. “They [Starbucks'...
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