Bill Gates’ little company has a world of expertise when it comes both to excessive prices and to taking advantage of the success of others. So, we hope San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Paul Alvarado will accept Microsoft’s advice and reject the claims of Townsend & Townsend & Crew for $258 million in legal fees in the California class action suit against Microsoft. (AP/New York Lawyer, Partner Defends $3,000 Hourly Billing Rate, 05-13-2004).
Lead attorney Eugene Crew of T&T&C, argued that he deserves about $3,000 for each of his 6,189.6 billable hours, “considering the enormity of this undertaking against the most powerful corporation in America.”
According to the AP report, the judge did not decide the fee issue on Wednesday, but instead, without hearing arguments, said he was “not prepared” to say “what I’m going to do.” Microsoft said the lawyers deserve no more than about $75 million combined. ethicalEsq argued against the fee request earlier this year at this site [Putting the Piggy in Piggy-Back].
A SFGate.com/AP article notes that the American Bar Association now has a task force investigating contingency fees, and that ABA rules require that a lawyer charge a reasonable fee. Steven Lesser, who chairs the task force, added this insight to the discussion of the California Microsoft case: “That’s a big question, what is reasonable.” The opinionated ethicalEsq also had some Suggestions for the ABA Contingency Fee Task Force.
The same article contained a far more astute quote from the California Supreme Court, which “two years ago upheld a lower court decision reducing fees from $88.5 million to $18.2 million for lawyers who won a class action accusing California of illegally charging out-of-state residents $300 extra for auto registration. The court called that request, for $8,000 an hour, ‘a testament to the unreal world of greed in which some attorneys practice law.'”
- Overlawyered.com has frequently covered this topic well, including yesterday.