A recent NLJ story, “Arguments Swirl Over Fairness of Ticketmaster Settlement,” reports that eight lawyers representing more than a dozen of the nearly 100 fee objectors to a consumer class action settlement with Ticketmaster urged a Los Angeles judge on July 24 to reject the deal, which they called the latest example of paying cash to the lawyers while the class members make do with coupons.

Addressing Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kenneth Freeman, the lawyers took turns during a fairness hearing to argue against final approval of the deal, which would grant $16.5 million in fees and costs to plaintiffs attorneys and discounts off the future ticket purchases to the nationwide class of consumers.

Under the deal, each class member would receive an e-mail discount code worth $1.50 against each future ticket purchase and a $5 discount code for each UPS delivery fee – both capped at 17 transactions.  The estimated class encompasses customers who bought tickets from Oct. 21, 1999 through Oct. 19, 2011.

Under the deal, plaintiffs’ attorneys would receive $15 million in attorney fees and about $1.5 million in costs.  W. Michael Hensley, a shareholder in the Santa Ana, Calif., office of AlvaradoSmith, a plaintiffs firm in the case, said attorneys has laid out their costs and fees in “excruciating detail.”  “We have not asked for all the fees that we have actually generated,” he said, noting that the lodestar amount came to $6.5 million.  He said that this case, unlike others cited by the fee objectors, took nearly nine years to litigate.