Comply with the Rules: No-No’s: More Fee Fights

Lawyers need to comply with the Rules

On June 1, 2012 the Indiana Supreme Court issued its Order of Suspension for failure to pay registration fees or attend mandatory CLE, here.

24 pages with over 290 Indiana licensed lawyers named and suspended from the practice of law, for not living up to the basic annual rules of lawyering. I was pleased to see that none of my fellow Fulton County, IN lawyers made the list this year. Did you or your lawyer?

Attorney Ethical No-Nos in Billing

Indiana blogger John Conlon posts this blog entry that starts:

According to the Comments to Rule 1.5 in the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct (6th ed.), here are some ethical “no-no’s” that lawyers can be disciplined for when it comes to billing for their services:

• Bill Padding
• Double Billing
• Fees for Doing Nothing
• Fees for Doing Very Little
• Doing Way Too Much
• Doing Remedial Work
• Too Many Lawyers Working on Matter

See the whole post here:  Thanks and H/T John Conlon.

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Fees Slashed by NY Judge – Embarassed for Firm

“A federal judge has rejected a ‘breathtaking’ $3.1 million fee request submitted by Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, awarding the firm only a fraction of the money it sought for winning a fight over a downpayment on a luxury apartment co-operative.”

The BIGLAW firm sought $3.1 Million, plus $177K in expenses, but got an award of only $475,000 total for fees and expenses.  More to the story…

I am not sure that 5,536.4 hours was the right amount of time for the firm and its lawyers to spend on this case, but I am disturbed by the judge’s comment that he declined “to recapitulate that review” in his opinion to “avoid undue embarrassment to a fine law firm like Kramer Levin.”  If they did not read the bill for $3.1 Million before submitting it to the court for the other side to pay, as he alleged, then they should be embarrassed.

Also, I wonder if the firm had told the client that the fees would run over $3M for the fight, if the client might have reconsidered.  Fee shifting statutes can be dangerous to the decisions made in a case.

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