A recent Law 360 story by Jeff Montgomery, “Del. Court Demands Info on $2.7M Atty Fee in Opioid Deal” reports that, citing unsatisfactory answers to questions about a flat, $2.7 million attorney fee payout request as part of Delaware's $100 million share of a nationwide opioid damage settlement, Delaware's chancellor cautioned she might sever the fee from the deal pending a fuller explanation.  In a letter to Cross & Simon LLC, Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick gave those seeking to wrap up the deal a choice between severing the fee award from the settlement for now or accepting a three-day deadline for briefs on the issue.

The chancellor said the request to direct the state's Prescription Opioid Distribution Commission to pay $2.7 million to unnamed outside attorneys "gave me pause for a few reasons."  Among the concerns, the chancellor said, is that "in analogous circumstances, this court exercises its own business judgment when approving attorneys' fees in representative litigation from a settlement fund."

At issue is Delaware's share of a $4 billion fund for state and local governments, carved out of an overall $26 billion settlement that, for Delaware, resolves investigations and litigation over the role that Johnson & Johnson and distributors Cardinal, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen played in creating and accelerating the opioid crisis.  Delaware Attorney General Kathleen Jennings announced the state's portion of the settlement in July 2021.  A complaint and final consent judgment were filed together in the Court of Chancery on Aug. 24, 2022.

Funds from the settlement will finance addiction treatment and prevention as well as other services and programs.  The agreement also mandates producer, distributor and health care reforms to prevent a recurrence of the crisis, including Johnson & Johnson's exit from opioid production.  Attorneys for Delaware told the chancellor that "court approval is not required," but said in a letter earlier this month that they are prepared to submit documents for a traditional court fee analysis if required.

Michael L. Vild of Cross & Simon said in a letter Oct. 13 that "this matter involves a two-party contract between the state and its counsel, unrelated to the state's agreement with the defendants.  There are no unrepresented or absent third parties."  That explanation, the chancellor said, "gave me pause."  Included in the overall settlement, the chancellor said, are provisions for establishment of an outside counsel fund, and statements in some parts of the settlement agreement say that payment of fees from the settlement fund is "disfavored."

A related agreement, "Remediating Opioids Across Delaware through State-Municipal Abatement Partnership," also discourages attorney fee payments from the settlement fund, the chancellor observed, adding that a multistep review and approval process is called for under some provisions.  "The parties effectively ask that I shortcut the statutory process for authorizing distributions by ordering the commission to distribute the $2.7 million to the state's outside counsel, without any opportunity for public comment or investigation by the commission, without any role of the consortium, and without the requisite approvals," the chancellor wrote.  "Maybe that is warranted and appropriate, but the parties did not expressly address this aspect of the relief requested."

Acknowledging concerns about delaying the payment, the chancellor suggested a three-day window for supplemental briefs on the issue or severing the fee provisions from the order, allowing the rest of the funds to go forward, pending a resolution on fee terms.

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.

A recent Law 360 story by Hailey Konnath, “Seventh Circ. Throws Out $11M Fee Award For Bernstein Litowitz” reports that the Seventh Circuit vacated an $11 million fee award for Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP's work on a $45 million settlement between waste disposal company Stericycle and its shareholders, finding that the district court "did not give sufficient weight" to points raised in a class member's objection.  The three-judge panel said the Illinois federal court overseeing the case should've more seriously considered evidence of related fee agreements, all the work that Bernstein Litowitz inherited from earlier litigation against Stericycle and the early stage at which the settlement was reached.

"The cumulative effect of these issues leads us to conclude that the district court's analysis did not sufficiently 'reflect the market-based approach for determining fee awards that is required by our precedent,'" the Seventh Circuit said.  The panel added, "We vacate the fee award and remand for a fresh determination more in line with what an ex ante agreement would have produced."

Objector Mark Petri appealed a 25% cut that Bernstein Litowitz got from representing investors claiming that Stericycle falsely inflated its financial results through fraudulent pricing.  In particular, Petri argued that the attorney fees were potentially inflated by a pay-to-play scheme and the case never proceeded past the motion-to-dismiss stage.

In the underlying case, lead plaintiffs Public Employees' Retirement System of Mississippi and the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System had pointed to briefing in a study conducted by Nera Economic Consulting.  According to that study, for securities class action cases that settled between 2014 and 2018 in amounts ranging from $25 million to $100 million, the median attorney fee award was 25%, like the share awarded to Bernstein Litowitz.

Bernstein Litowitz asked the court to approve its $11 million fee request in June 2019, and the court gave its blessing in May 2020.  But the Seventh Circuit said that the district court's analysis was incomplete.  Notably, the court didn't address a 2016 retention agreement between the firm and the Mississippi attorney general, under which Bernstein Litowitz was authorized to represent the Mississippi fund and seek a percentage of the recovery achieved for the class as compensation.  That percentage, however, was supposed to be limited to the percentage corresponding to the fund's estimated individual recovery, the panel said.

At oral argument, Bernstein Litowitz had said that the sliding scale structure outlined in that agreement only applies to the amount recovered by the fund itself, not to the total amount recovered by the class.  The Seventh Circuit said that interpretation is "improbable, arbitrary, unreasonable and not consistent with a class representative's fiduciary duty to class members."

Additionally, the district court's assessment of the risk of non-payment also didn't give sufficient weight to prior litigation involving Stericycle, litigation that substantially reduced the risk of non-payment, the panel said.  The court had found that the risk of non-payment was "substantial," but that earlier litigation demonstrating Stericycle's billing practices and other settlements signaled that class counsel was not actually taking on much risk, the Seventh Circuit said.

And on top of that, the court didn't properly consider just how early on in the litigation the case was settled, according to the decision.  At the very least, the district court should've considered whether the preliminary stage of the litigation warranted a reduction in the requested fee, it said.  The Seventh Circuit also remarked that it wasn't convinced the settlement was a good outcome for the class, but that neither Petri nor anyone else was challenging that.

A recent Law 360 story by Dorothy Atkins, “Hagens Berman Must Forfeit $31M Fee Win, 9th Circuit Told” reports that an objector's counsel urged the Ninth Circuit to force Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP to forfeit or reduce a revised $31 million fee award for securing deals worth $205 million in multidistrict litigation over optical disk drive price-fixing, arguing that the law firm violated multiple professional rules of ethics.  During a hearing before a three-judge panel, objector Connor Erwin's counsel, Robert Clore of Bandas Law Firm PC, argued that Hagens Berman violated multiple California Rules of Professional Conduct in securing its eight-figure fee award before a trial court, including by never placing the disputed funds into a client trust account, despite class members' objections and appeals pending.

But U.S. Circuit Court Judges Morgan Christen and Carlos T. Bea asked how class members have been harmed by the firm's failure to hold the funds in a client trust account.  "What harm, what foul?" Judge Bea asked.  Clore replied that as a result, the class has been denied up to $600,000 in interest that would have been collected on the disputed money.  At least a portion of that interest should have gone back to the class when a Ninth Circuit panel vacated Hagens Berman's previous $52.8 million fee and expense award, the attorney said.

"Why should they be entitled to interest on fees that don't belong to them?" Clore asked the panel.  The trip to the Ninth Circuit is the latest chapter in a decade-old multidistrict litigation claiming that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Toshiba Corp. and other disk drive makers participated in an industry-wide conspiracy to fix optical disk drive prices.

Hagens Berman beat out other firms for lead class counsel in 2010, and the firm later struck multimillion-dollar deals to resolve the disputes.  After U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg took over the case from U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, Judge Seeborg awarded the law firm $47.8 million in attorney fees for securing the settlements.  But in May 2020, a pair of Ninth Circuit panels vacated the fee awards after Clore argued before the appellate court that Judge Seeborg erred by keeping Hagens Berman's initial proposal for lead class counsel under seal and not properly taking it into account in awarding fees, among other objections.

On remand, in July, Judge Seeborg awarded Hagens Berman a revised $31 million fee, finding that the firm was entitled to a 20% premium on top of the $25.9 million it would be allotted under the firm's interpretation of the fee grid in its initial class counsel proposal.  Judge Seeborg also awarded Erwin's counsel $1.5 million in fees in September for their work helping to convince the Ninth Circuit to throw out the initial fee award.

But Erwin again challenged the fee award, with Clore arguing before the appellate court that Hagens Berman took too long to return the fees after the previous panel vacated the award, and did not place the funds in a client trust account, as required by professional rules of conduct.  Clore added that the trial court also erred in miscalculating the "starting point" for setting reasonable attorney fees on remand by using a flat rate instead of the sliding scale specified in the firm's initial proposal, resulting in an adjusted $25.9 million for the firm.  That amount should be $22.2 million, he said.

In light of the alleged violations, Clore asked the Ninth Circuit to send a message that class counsel are not immune to the California state bar's professional rules, and require the law firm to either forfeit its fees, or at the very least reduce the fees to keep in line with the firm's initial $22.2 million fee proposal.  As support, Clore cited the Ninth Circuit's 2012 decision in Rodriguez v. Disner, which held that a court has "broad equitable powers to … require an attorney to disgorge fees already received" for a serious ethical violation.

But class counsel Shana E. Scarlett, of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, argued that $31 million in fees is justified given the length of litigation and how fiercely the litigation was fought.  She also argued that the judge properly awarded additional fees on top of the initial $25.9 million proposal based on his discretion and understanding of the case.

But Judge Bea asked why the trial judge used a flat rate instead of the sliding scale methodology specified in the firm's initial bid proposal.  "Why isn't Judge Seeborg wrong in using a flat basis rather than a sliding scale basis based on the schedule we have before us?" the judge asked the attorney.  Scarlett replied that the firm's initial bid proposal was just one part of what informed the trial judge's decision. But Judge Bea appeared skeptical.

"You're talking about extrinsic evidence that was used by Judge Seeborg to interpret the writing, which we have before us?" Judge Bea asked.  "What factual evidence was there?  Are you saying that the written document is ambiguous and requires factual findings interpreted?"  Scarlett replied that the initial proposal was clear that the fees should use a flat rate, and not a sliding scale, but Judge Seeborg "went further and made the finding that we intended to be flat rate structure."

A recent Reuters story by Allison Frankel, “N.Y. Judge Calls Out Susman Godfrey for “Inadequate Fee Disclosure,” reports that Manhattan federal judge Kevin Castel refused this week to grant preliminary approval of a proposed $92.5 million class action settlement to resolve allegations that Voya Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company breached its contract with more than 46,000 life insurance policyholders who were subjected to a “cost of insurance” rate increase when Voya’s predecessor sold the policies to Lincoln Life and Annuity Company of New York.

The judge’s beef was not with the terms of the proposed settlement itself, which class counsel from Susman Godfrey described in a brief backing preliminary approval as “extraordinary.”  Susman Godfrey’s brief certainly establishes the firm’s tenacity in more than five years of litigation, all the way through class certification and summary judgment rulings.  The cash portion of the proposed agreement, Susman said, will provide at least as robust a recovery for policyholders as settlements that have previously been approved in other cost of insurance class actions.  And here, the firm said, the money will go straight to policyholders, who don’t even have to assert a claim to receive their share of the settlement fund.

Susman Godfrey said it intended to request a fee award of less than one-third of the settlement.  More specifically, the proposed notice to class members, attached as an exhibit to a declaration from the claims administrator, said Susman “will file a motion seeking an award for attorneys’ fees not to exceed one-third of the gross benefits provided to the settlement class.”

That mention of "gross benefits" caught Castel’s attention.  In the memo requesting preliminary approval, Susman touted the value of the non-monetary benefits it had obtained in the proposed settlement, including Voya’s pledge not to raise cost of insurance rates for class members for five years.  In an analogous class action mentioned in Susman’s motion, similar benefits were valued at more than $90 million.

Castel said it wasn’t clear from the language of the proposed class notice whether Susman Godfrey would ask for less than 33% of the cash value of the settlement – a number that would be simple for class members to calculate – or 33% of some as-yet unknown total settlement value.

“No hint is given as to the methodology that class counsel plans to employ,” Castel said, pointing out that if Susman Godfrey evaluated the non-monetary settlement provisions as generously as they were viewed in the class action cited in class counsel’s brief, one-third of the “gross benefits” could be as much as $62 million – which would give Susman Godfrey two-thirds of the cash in the settlement.  “If this is what counsel has in mind – or anything close to it – class members and the court should know it now,” Castel said.

Castel had to connect some dots to understand the potential gap between fees based on just the $92.5 million cash recovery for the class and an award that included the value of the non-cash benefits.  Susman’s memo requesting preliminary approval of the settlement does not put a dollar figure on those benefits.  Castel must have obtained the valuation figure he cited in this week’s opinion from a declaration filed by Susman’s Seth Ard.

Castel also took issue with class counsel’s proposed explanation to class members of the consequences of opting out of the settlement.  The proposed notice advised class members that they could tell the judge what they didn’t like about the settlement but would still be bound by the deal.  “This statement is fundamentally misleading,” Castel said.  “The purpose of an objection is to persuade the court not to approve the proposed settlement.  A successful objection means that the objector and other members of the class are not bound.”

Susman’s Steven Sklaver told me by email that the firm has taken Castel’s feedback to heart.  Susman intends to file a revised motion for preliminary approval clarifying that its fee request will be based only on the cash payout to class members, not on any additional value from the non-cash benefits.  “We are thankful for the court’s consideration of the matter and guidance,” Sklaver said.

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