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Category: Fee Clause

Federal Court Asked to Confirm Attorney Fees in Arbitration Award

May 12, 2023

A recent Law 360 by Elliot Weld, “Spanish IT Provider Asks Court to Confirm $14M Award,” reports that a spanish information technology provider Amadeus IT Group asked an Atlanta federal court to confirm an arbitration award it was granted by the International Chamber of Commerce against technology firm Ebix, saying the court should reject Ebix's arguments that the award improperly includes attorney fees.  Amadeus said that the inclusion of attorney fees in the award was the only argument Ebix had advanced to challenge it, and that both parties had agreed to be bound by the rules of the ICC.

"Ebix's sole basis for challenging the arbitration award is the arbitral tribunal's award of attorney fees," a memorandum by Amadeus reads.  "Contrary to Ebix's argument, the tribunal did not exceed its scope or authority."  According to Amadeus, the parties entered into a global agreement in October 2019 for Amadeus to provide Ebix's Indian subsidiary EbixCash with access to the Amadeus Travel Platform, a software interface it provides to its clients, in the Asia-Pacific region.  As part of that agreement, Amadeus paid EbixCash $15 million that was repayable if EbixCash failed to produce international airline bookings in certain volumes within time frames depicted in the agreement, according to Amadeus.

EbixCash failed to meet the required numbers and Amadeus terminated the agreement and sought repayment in April 2020, the company said.  The parties entered arbitration after they were "unable to reach an amicable resolution," according to the petition.  Ebix argued in a response April 18 that the tribunal's inclusion of costs and fees in the final award was beyond the scope of its power.  Amadeus responded that in the 2019 agreement between the two companies, ICC rules were included that permit a tribunal to award fees.  Ebix also waived its right to challenge the fees when it failed to raise the issue during arbitration, Amadeus said.

Eleventh Circuit precedent dictates that courts defer to the decisions of a tribunal when the scope of an arbitration is in dispute, Amadeus said.  "Ebix cannot point to a clause limiting Amadeus' ability to recover fees because no such clause exists," Amadeus argued.  At minimum, the remainder of the final $14 million award excluding the legal costs is not contested, and the court should confirm that even if it finds the tribunal exceeded its own authority, Amadeus said.

"Ebix is opposing confirmation of the award solely for purposes of delay," the motion reads.  "The final award was issued well over a year ago, and Ebix is disputing only the fees and costs portion of the award.  Yet Ebix has yet to pay anything on the final award, including the undisputed principal amount."

Article: A Lawyer’s Guide To Collecting Fees From Nonpaying Clients

August 12, 2022

A recent Law 360 article by Joshua Wurtzel, “A Lawyer’s Guide To Collecting Fees From Nonpaying Clients,” reports on collecting unpaid fees.  This article was posted with permission.  The article reads:

You've done the work and sent the bill, but haven't been paid. What do you do?  This is unfortunately a question that lawyers, from solo practitioners to BigLaw partners, confront all too often.  But most lawyers struggle with the answer.  And even worse, many end up doing nothing — leaving significant receivables on the table from clients who have the ability to pay.  Struggle no longer.  Here, I offer some recommendations on how to deal with a nonpaying client. The article focuses on the law on account stated in New York.  These principles and advice are generally applicable in most U.S. jurisdictions, though you should of course consult the specific law in your jurisdiction.

Make Sure Your Retainer Agreement Gives You Adequate Protection

Good collection starts with a good retainer agreement.  There are several important clauses any retainer agreement should have.

Thirty Days to Object

Your retainer agreement should include a clause stating that if a client has an objection to an invoice, the client must make a specific objection in writing within 30 days.  Courts have upheld these types of clauses, and have further held that a client that fails to make a specific, timely objection in accordance with this clause waives objections to the invoice.

Fee Shifting

Many lawyers avoid suing clients for unpaid fees because the time spent doing so can be better spent on other, billable tasks.  But if you include a fee-shifting clause in your retainer agreement, a nonpaying client could end up being responsible for fees you incur in bringing the suit.  Make sure, however, that the fee-shifting clauses run in favor of the client as well if he or she is the prevailing party, or else it will be unenforceable.

Choice of Forum and Acceptance of Service of Process

Your retainer agreement should also include a forum selection clause in the state in which you practice so you don't have to go out of state to sue a nonpaying client.  And it should also include a clause stating that the client agrees to accept service of process by mail or email, in case you have trouble serving the client personally.

Rely on the Retaining Lien and Charging Lien

New York law strongly favors attorneys who are stiffed by their clients.  So there are some tools you can use to try to collect without having to bring a lawsuit.

Retaining Lien

When a client has an outstanding balance with his or her former lawyer, the lawyer can assert a retaining lien over the client's file. This allows the lawyer to refuse to turn over the file to the client or his or her new counsel until the outstanding balance is paid or otherwise secured.  To lift the retaining lien, the former client must either pay the amount owed to the lawyer or post a bond for that amount.

Charging Lien

Under Section 475 of the New York Judiciary Law, "from the commencement of an action," the lawyer who "appears for a party has a lien upon his or her client's cause of action," which attaches to a verdict, settlement, judgment or final order in his or her client's favor.

This section gives the lawyer a lien on the proceeds of the former client's case to the extent of the amount owed to the lawyer, with the result that no proceeds can be distributed to the former client or his or her new counsel until the former lawyer is paid.

In 1995, the New York Court of Appeals in LMWT Realty Corp. v. Davis Agency Inc. held that this lien "does not merely give an attorney an enforceable right against the property of another," but instead "gives the attorney an equitable ownership interest in the client's cause of action."

Sue for Account Stated

If all else fails and you need to sue a nonpaying client, the account stated cause of action will be your best friend.  Indeed, in New York, this cause of action allows a professional services provider to sue a client for nonpayment of an invoice if the client has retained the invoice for at least a few months and has failed to make timely, specific, written objections.  This cause of action thus provides lawyers with a substantial tool to pursue a nonpaying client.

Invoice Requirement

To state a claim for account stated, you must show only that you sent the invoices to the client and the client retained them — usually for at least a few months — without making specific, written objections.  It is thus important to maintain a record of when invoices are sent and to whom — ideally by email to an email address the client gave to receive invoices.

Oral Objections

Generally, a client must make specific, written objections to an invoice; general or oral objections will not be enough to defeat a claim for account stated. Nor will general claims by a client that he or she is dissatisfied with a particular outcome suffice.

Reasonableness of Fees

Many nonpaying clients will defend against a nonpayment suit by claiming that they were overbilled or that the quality of the work was not to their liking.  But if these objections are not made in a timely way, with specificity and in writing, courts generally hold that they are waived.

This is significant for a lawyer pursuing a nonpaying client, as most clients will defend by claiming that there was something wrong with the work done by the lawyer.  And so if an account is stated by virtue of the client's retention of the invoices, the reasonableness of the fees and the quality of the work has no bearing on the merit of the account stated claim.

Underlying Agreement to Pay

While account stated is a powerful cause of action, it works only if there is an underlying agreement to pay for the services rendered.  So a person who randomly sends out invoices without having an underlying agreement with the recipients of the invoices can obviously not rely on account stated.

But if you have a retainer agreement that properly covers the scope of the work you will be doing, you shouldn't have a problem.  Nor is there a requirement that the client has agreed to pay for the specific invoices at issue, as long as the client has agreed to pay for your services generally.

The Dreaded Malpractice Claim

Most nonpaying clients faced with a lawsuit by their former lawyer will assert counterclaims for malpractice — even if the malpractice claim has no merit.  While the lawyer must, of course, still deal with the malpractice claim, courts generally go out of their way to sever a lawyer's account stated claim from a nonpaying client's malpractice counterclaim.  This is especially so if the alleged malpractice relates to different work from what is at issue on the unpaid invoices.

Further, as a strategic matter, unless the malpractice counterclaim has merit, most nonpaying clients will drop it after the lawyer obtains a quick judgment on summary judgment at the outset of the case.

Conclusion

Suing a former client is never pleasant, and is a last resort after the attorney-client relationship has broken down. But using efficient, streamlined ways to collect from nonpaying clients can allow a law firm to provide greater value to the rest of its clients.

Joshua Wurtzel is a partner at Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP in New York.

NALFA Releases 2021 Litigation Hourly Rate Survey & Report

July 19, 2022

Every year, NALFA conducts an hourly rate survey of civil litigation in the U.S.   Today, NALFA released the results from its 2021 hourly rate survey.  The survey results, published in The 2021 Litigation Hourly Rate Survey & Report, shows billing rate data on the very factors that correlate directly to hourly rates in litigation:

City / Geography
Years of Litigation Experience / Seniority
Position / Title
Practice Area / Complexity of Case
Law Firm / Law Office Size

This empirical survey and report provides micro and macro data of current hourly rate ranges for both defense and plaintiffs’ litigators, at various experience levels, from large law firms to solo shops, in regular and complex litigation, and in the nation’s largest markets.  This data-intensive survey contains hundreds of data sets and thousands of data points covering all relevant billing rate categories and variables.  This is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive survey or study on hourly billing rates in litigation.

This is the second year NALFA has conducted this survey on billing rates.  The 2021 Litigation Hourly Rate Survey & Report contains new cities, additional categories, and more accurate variables.  These updated features allow us to capture new and more precise billing rate data.  Through our propriety email database, NALFA surveyed thousands of litigators from across the U.S.  Over 8,400 qualified litigators fully participated in this hourly rate survey.  This data-rich survey was designed to aid litigators in proving their lodestar rates in court and comparing their rates to their litigation peers.

The 2021 Litigation Hourly Rate Survey & Report is now available for purchase.  For more on this survey, email NALFA Executive Director Terry Jesse at terry@thenalfa.org or call us at (312) 907-7275.

Attorneys Seek $4.3M in Long Running Trade Secrets Litigation

April 27, 2022

A recent Law 360 story by Andrew Karpan, “Atty Seek $4.3M In Fees For 13-Year Trade Secrets Suit” reports that lawyers for an Austrian-owned electronics company have asked a Texas federal judge to allow them to collect over $4.3 million in fees from losing party Renesas Electronics at what could be the end of a decade-long trade secrets saga, if the now-$48 million case doesn't head to a jury for a third time.  The fee bid came from the Dallas law firm that has continuously represented Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions Inc. since its initial 2008 lawsuit against a California rival chipmaker named Intersil.  In the time since, Texas Advanced was sold to austriamicrosystems AG and renamed AMS Sensors USA Inc., Intersil was absorbed by Japanese conglomerate Renesas, and law firm Munck Carter PC became Munck Wilson Mandala LLP.

"Plaintiff seeks its reasonable attorneys' fees after 13.5 years of contentious litigation," Munck Wilson's motion reads.  Legal filings in the case had spanned "886 docket entries," and the case went to a jury twice.  In 2015, a jury agreed with AMS Sensors' argument that Renesas used failed merger talks to steal legally protectable trade secrets related to light sensors that Renesas sells companies including Apple to use in products like iPhones and iPods. Renesas was ordered to pay AMS $88.7 million in damages, although a Texas federal judge trimmed the amount to $77 million.

But the Federal Circuit later ruled that AMS' lawyers made a legally incorrect argument to jurors in that case: the exact amount of damages that Renesas owed should have formally come from the judge instead.  The Texas federal judge overseeing the case then declared senior status and, noting that he now had "limited time to devote to this matter," immediately handed the case to U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant III, who sent the case to a jury again last year.  That time, the jury delivered only an "advisory" award of nearly $85.9 million. Last month, Judge Mazzant set the damages award at $48 million.

According to AMS, the original agreement the companies inked in 2004 to cover the merger negotiations "specifically provides that the parties 'will indemnify and hold harmless the other against any and all damages, loss, or liability (including reasonable attorney's fees).'"  Citing the clause, the company and its attorneys put forward a request for $4,332,265 in fees.  The lawyers say this accounts for "merely one-third of the total hours worked before the proceedings on remand, and just one-half of the total hours worked thereafter."

To defend their rates, the Munck Wilson attorneys cited what they could find about how much Renesas' lawyers at Foley & Lardner LLP are known to bill their clients.  For example, they found a deposition delivered by Foley's William Robinson after he won a 2014 trademark case that attested his "average rate" is "$769/hour."  Munck Wilson asked to list the actual rates it was asking for under seal.

Mass. Justices Told Attorney Fee Award Must Be Covered

April 4, 2022

A recent Law 360 story by Ganesh Setty, “Mass. Justices Told Atty Fee Award Must Be Covered” reports that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court heard oral arguments on whether an attorney fee award constitutes damages "because of" bodily injury, with the dispute appearing to hinge on whether a reasonable policyholder would interpret their policy that way in light of a narrow, inapplicable exclusion exception for such payments.

Vermont Mutual Insurance Co. argued the attorney fee award against its insureds falls outside its "because of" causation standard with respect to bodily injury claims.  The recipient of the yet-to-be-paid award, Phyllis Maston, meanwhile highlighted how the policy did not specifically define the term "damages."  The Massachusetts high court appeared hesitant to side with Maston, given the award originated from a state consumer protection statute, and Vermont Mutual's policy is a standard form insurance contract used nationwide.

According to court documents, Vermont Mutual insured Paul and Jane Poirier, franchisees of damage restoration chain Servpro, under a business owners policy between December 1998 and December 2001.  Phyllis Maston and her late husband, Douglas, hired Servpro to clean out their basement, and Phyllis Maston later suffered a nasal infection she attributed to the cleaning solution Servpro used.  The Mastons sued Servpro, and a trial court ultimately found in 2009 that Servpro violated Massachusetts' consumer protection law, Chapter 93A, through its breach of warranty.

As part of Chapter 93A, which empowers consumers to sue businesses for unfair or deceptive practices, a successful petitioner can recover their own attorney fees.  The law treats attorney fee awards as separate from awards for damages.  Vermont Mutual paid nearly $700,000 to Maston, but refused to cover her award of more than $215,000 in attorney fees, along with another $21,600 in attorney fees following Servpro's unsuccessful appeal of the original judgment, according to court documents.

The insurer subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Poiriers and Maston seeking a court declaration that the total attorney fee award is not covered since it does not constitute insured damages "because of" bodily injury as required by its policy.  A lower court sided with Maston in July 2016, noting there are no other cases in Massachusetts directly addressing a coverage dispute like Vermont Mutual's.  The court instead pointed to the 2010 Ohio Supreme Court decision in Neal-Pettit v. Lahman, which involved language similar to Vermont Mutual's policy, and found that attorney fees do qualify as damages because of bodily injury.

Vermont Mutual maintained in its high court briefs that since the policy used "because of," rather than a broader term like "arising out of," the attorney fee award is not covered, especially since Chapter 93A treats damages and attorney fee awards as separate remedies.  The insurer further argued that an exception to a contractual liability exclusion in the policy explicitly treats an attorney fee award as damages because of bodily injury only when there's an insurance contract between its insured and another party, and the parties can be jointly represented in a civil dispute.

While a policyholder reading the policy may initially think an attorney fee award constitutes covered damages, "you can't find ambiguity just because you stopped reading," Peter E. Heppner, counsel for the insurer, told the high court's seven justices.  Although inapplicable, the exclusion exception illustrates that the policy did not intend to broadly treat attorney fees as damages because of bodily injury, he said.  Justice Scott L. Kafker asked Heppner, with respect to Maston's attorney fee award: "I understand that it's two or three steps removed, but it all arises out of the fact that there's an injury, doesn't it?"

"'Arises out of' is an interesting choice of words," Heppner responded. "When the policy has 'arising out of' in several exclusions, and then 'because of' here — and we know that the Supreme Court has said 'because of' is 'but for' — there has to be a distinction between those words."

When asked by Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt why the exclusion exception didn't put a reasonable insured on notice that the attorney fees may not otherwise be covered, Timothy P. Wickstrom, an attorney representing Maston, said the exclusion exception was inapplicable to the case to begin with.  It only concerns defense costs for the insured and the other party it contracts with, not attorney fee awards adverse to an insured, he argued.  If Vermont Mutual wanted to broadly bar coverage for attorney fees, one sentence stating so would have sufficed, he added.  The insurance policy at issue is a standard form insurance policy, Justice Kafker further noted. "That's where it gets me nervous."

"Here [in] Massachusetts, we've got this particular 93A attorney fee provision that's idiosyncratic, and we're applying it to these nationwide forms, right?" he asked.  The coverage dispute is not about Chapter 93A's separate treatment of damages and attorney fees, but whether attorney fees are covered under the policy, Wickstrom responded. Wickstrom further highlighted that part of the total attorney fee award under Chapter 93A includes Servpro's unsuccessful appeal of the judgment in the underlying case.

"In a situation where Vermont Mutual had a duty to defend, had a duty to indemnify — the defendants, their insureds, were on the hook for the appeals court fees," he said.  "How unfair is that?"  "Just create all the complexities of 93A attorneys fees, which probably no one ever thought about when they created this sort of extra remedy for everybody," Justice Kafker quipped.