African American Farmers Class Action Settlement Fee Request.
As posted by Mike Scarcella on August 9, 2011 at The Blog of Legal Times, class action lawyers representing a class of African American farmers in a loan discrimination suit against the Government are requesting $90.8 million in fees, the maximum allowed under the terms of a settlement and about 7.4% of the $1.25 billion settlement. That compares with $60.8 million in fees, or 8% of the settlement amount, recently awarded in April of this year by a federal district judge to a group of lawyers representing a class of Native American farmers and ranchers in Keepseagle v. Vilsack. The Justice Department will be responding to the fee requests in the coming weeks.
Payment of Fees For Defense of Hacking Scandal Private Investigator Controversial in Britain.
James A. Stewart, in an interesting August 5, 2011 post in The New York Times, tells us that News Corporation (controlled by Mr. Murdoch) announced recently that it would stop paying legal fees for Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator at the center of Britain’s tabloid phone hacking scandal. After hearing this, Mr. Mulcaire is reported to say that he is mum for now, but that might change in the future. Looks like these fee-bearing arrangements–thought to be arrangements to “buy silence”–are controversial in the U.K., but are actually quite routine here in the U.S. In fact, the infamous DOJ “Thompson memo” that tried to put a stop to these arrangements resulted in some indictment dismissals when a federal district judge suggested the memo violated the employees’ Sixth Amendment right to counsel. DOJ then discarded the Thompson memo, enacting a policy that these arrangements should not be taken into account unless the fees are part of an effort to obstruct justice. The post reports that 99% of senior management and directors in U.S. publicly held companies have indemnification agreements to pay legal expenses. The post also suggests Mr. Murdoch should think about protecting Mr. Mulcaire under a U.S.-inspired payment arrangement.
Delinquent Client Was Allegedly Solicited by Lawyer to Kill Another Ex-Client Whose Ex-Wife Became Lawyer’s Girlfriend – Specific Performance Unavailable as a Remedy.
In a wild August 10, 2011 post by Martha Neil in the on-line version of The ABA Journal, an Illinois matrimonial lawyer is accused of trying to arrange a contract hit on a former client whose ex-wife became the lawyer’s girlfriend. He allegedly contacted five individuals to do the hit. Guess who one of the individuals was? You guessed it. A client who owed the lawyer money for delinquent attorney’s fees. The contract apparently was never executed–the hit that is, not the fee retainer.