Quinn Emanuel Entitled to $13 Million Contingency Fee For Settlement With Facebook.
Ever seen the film “The Social Network”? It deals with the dispute between the Winklevoss twins and social-media giant Facebook. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a well-known Los Angeles trial firm, helped the twins reach a $65 million settlement in a dispute between Facebook and ConnectU, the twins’ network website. Brothers fought giving Quinn Emanuel’s its agreed-upon $13 million contingency fee for the settlement, bringing a malpractice suit that claimed Quinn Emanuel miscalculated Facebook’s stock value during the settlement negotiations. An arbitration had earlier decided that the $13 million fee should be paid, a determination confirmed by a trial judge. On October 6, 2011, New York’s Appellate Division dismissed the twins’ malpractice suit against Quinn Emanuel, which is now $13 million richer. We thank an October 11, 2011 post by Thomson Reuters News & Insight for this part of our post.
Bill Lerach Made Up to $70 Million in the Enron Federal Securities Case.
Remember Bill Lerach, the famous federal securities class action attorney who was convicted of a felony under a plea deal and spent about 19 months in prison? Well, he’s out and doing gardening as well as a lot of traveling lately. As reported in an October 12, 2011 post by SFGate.com, Mr. Lerach earned about $10.3 million a year between 1990-1998, although he had to pay about $8 million in fines and penalties under his guilty plea arrangement. However, even while he was incarcerated, Mr. Lerach’s former firm convinced a Houston district court judge to award fees of $688 million plus interest to the class action attorneys involved in the case. It is reported that the firm even helped Mr. Lerach get a reported share of $70 million for Enron work. Zowee!