Montrose Chemical Defense: Is An Associate Worth $450 An Hour?
Latham & Watkins, a high-powered, national law firm based out of Los Angeles, has been defending Montrose Chemical Corp. in a toxic tort case, with Montrose being insured by Century Indemnity Co. L&W and the insurer have apparently been locked in a nasty battle about reasonableness of fees. Accordingly to an April 22, 2009 article by Debra Cassens Weiss, “Is Associate Worth $450 Hourly? Fee Cited in Latham Dispute” (available for reading at the ABA Journal website), L&W billed about $21.8 million in a four-year period ending 2006 in defending Montrose, and Century Indemnity paid about $5.8 million of the tab. They are still jousting on what is reasonable, with various claims being exchanged back and forth. (The insurer seems to be particularly mad about the fact L&W billed more than $330,000 for internal communications and memoranda between attorneys on the case.) L&W billed fees ranging from $380-$450 per hour for lawyers, while the insurer said reasonable hourly rates would range from $140-$180 an hour.
One of the most interesting aspects of the controversy is the insurer’s challenge to the $450 hourly rate for an “unlicensed” L&W associate—a charge denied by L&W (which says the associate, a former judicial clerk, was licensed at the time). Co-contributors Marc and Mike have no real comment, except to note that Mike just now bills out at $450 an hour after being licensed for almost 30 years.
Jurupa School District Member Hit with Anti-SLAPP Fees and Appeals.
Jurupa Unified School District board member Michael Rodriguez sued the District and two individuals (a superintendent and a former board member) for due process, civil and equal protection violations arising out of his January 2007 censure by board members. Mr. Rodriguez apparently lost an anti-SLAPP motion brought by the defendants, being assessed with an adverse award of attorney’s fees amounting to around $47,970. Mr. Rodriguez has appealed to the Fourth District, Division 2 Court of Appeal, so we are sure to report on the result in an upcoming post. For more information on the case, see Sandra Stokley’s story, “Jurupa schools lawsuit heading to Court of Appeal and beyond,” in the April 22, 2009 Press Enterprise (pe.com).
Davis Attorney Ordered to Pay $65,000 in Fees to Chico Newspaper.
Fees awarded to prevailing defendants in anti-SLAPP motions are becoming more and more common, especially when the defendant is a newspaper with more stringent protections from libel claims. Paul Boylan, a Davis, CA attorney, knows about this all too well.
Mr. Boylan apparently represented a Willows newspaper and was awarded $100,000 in attorney’s fees in a lawsuit against the Sacramento Valley Mirror. His fee award did not last that long as far as savoring the fruits of his victory.
In November 2008, Mr. Boylan filed a lawsuit in Butte County Superior Court claiming defamation and negligence against the Enterprise-Record, Chico’s local newspaper based on comments posted on a message board for ChicoER.com readers hosted by Topix.net. Newspaper filed a SLAPP motion, Mr. Boylan dismissed his action, and Judge Barbara Roberts awarded the paper a little over $65,000 in fees and costs (based on decisions that indicate a dismissal of a complaint before a SLAPP motion is heard does not divest the trial court of jurisdiction to decide the motion and award fees to the prevailing party). So, in the end, Mr. Boylan had to give back a fair amount of what he had earned from the earlier lawsuit.
For more on this one, see “Lawyer ordered to pay Enterprise-Record legal fees,” posted April 24, 2009 at the ChicoER.com website.
Mobile Park Owner Awarded Millions in Fees After Homeowners Lose Rent Control Lawsuit.
San Rafael residents in the rent-controlled mobile home park known as Contempo Marin lost a protracted lawsuit by park owner Equity LifeStyle Properties, Inc. in United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Equity won a constitutional challenge to the rent-control ordinance, such that rents will go up after a stay of 10 years in enforcement of the favorable judgment. Also, District Judge Vaughn Walker ordered that San Rafael pay $1.8 million in fees to Equity.
More details on this case can be found in Jennifer Upshaw’s article “San Rafael, homeowners lose Contempo Marin rent-control lawsuit,” posted April 21, 2009 on marinij.com.
Billionaire Allen Stanford Wants Release of $10 Million to Pay Legal Fees to Fight Ponzi Scheme Charges.
Billionaire Allen Stanford, two aides and three of his companies are accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of involvement in a Ponzi scheme for high-yield certificates of deposit issued by Stanford International Bank in Antigua. His assets were frozen on February 17, 2009 by a court-appointed attorney in the case, effectively stymieing his efforts to pay his team of defense attorneys. Mr. Stanford has moved to have District Judge David Godbey release the funds, beyond his efforts of obtaining an advance of defense costs from certain insurance policies (likely D&O). Mr. Stanford has argued in court papers that the SEC has no proof of a Ponzi scheme, with the collapse of his financial network resulting from governmental seizure of the firm.
Richard Scrushy, founder of HealthSouth Corp., was successful in obtaining a lift of frozen assets so that he could pay defense costs. This was an important win, because he was eventually acquitted in 2005 in a criminal accounting case.
For more detail on this item, see Anna Driver’s story “Allen Stanford seen in hard fight for legal fees,” posted April 23, 2009 at uk.reuters.com. (BLOG OBSERVATION—Co-contributors Marc and Mike successfully opposed a preliminary injunction sought in a civil federal securities case that sought to try up a defendant’s access to company funds for his defense, even though the management agreement allowed defendant to use these funds for defending against the securities lawsuit. This win made it possible for defendant to continue his defense and paved the way for a settlement that was favorable in nature.)