Turtle Talk

From the BLT:

The nearly $100 million legal fee cap in a landmark class action in Washington is less than half of the amount the plaintiffs’ attorneys could have received through a contingency fee arrangement, the attorneys for lead class member Elouise Cobell said in court papers.

The plaintiffs’ lawyers representing a class of Native Americans agreed in the settlement to a range of fees between $50 million and $99.9 million—money that will be cut from the roughly $1.5 billion in compensation for potentially hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries. The suit, filed in 1996, challenged the government’s mismanagement of billions of dollars of trust fund assets stemming from private use of Indian land.

The fee cap is a far cry from what the plaintiffs’ attorneys call “fair compensation” for a complex civil case that has dragged on in Washington’s federal trial court with no end in sight. The attorneys, including Washington solo practitioner Dennis Gingold and Kilpatrick Stockton partner Keith Harper, argue that more than $223 million is appropriate for legal fees. Click here for a copy of the plaintiffs’ fee notice.

The $223 million noted in court papers filed Dec. 10 isn’t a random number. It represents the compensation from the contingency fee arrangement the plaintiffs’ attorneys executed before the settlement was announced in December 2009. The attorneys expected a 14.75% cut of any funds created for the benefit of class members. The plaintiffs “believed then, and continue to believe” the contingency fee agreement is consistent with controlling law.

Government lawyers involved in the case “insisted” at the end of settlement negotiations, according to Cobell’s attorneys, that class counsel not be paid more than $99.9 million for fees and expenses through the end of December 2009.

The settlement’s legal fee structure, the plaintiffs’ attorneys said, is “at odds with the executed fee agreements and controlling law.” The lawyers for Cobell said controlling law holds that the percentage-of-recovery method is the governing standard.

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