A recent Law.com story by Amanda Bronstad, “Roundup MDL Lead Counsel Defend Fee Allocations: ‘Limited Funds Available’”, reports that lawyers doling out fees in Roundup litigation stood by their decisions on how to allocate the funds, despite objections raised by other firms.

The fee committee, which is comprised of the three lead plaintiffs firms in the Roundup multidistrict litigation, allocated 81% to themselves and the rest to four other firms, including those who helped win the only bellwether trial, which ended in an $80 million verdict in 2019.  Three of those firms objected to their share of the so-called common benefit fund, which totaled $20.23 million.

Lead counsel originally had sought an order that would have granted about $800 million in common benefit fees, enough for the firms to “each afford to buy their own island,” U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria wrote in a 2021 order significantly trimming the scope of common benefit fees in the Roundup litigation.

Several firms had objected to the original request, which they called a “money grab,” but lead counsel insisted that Bayer, which owns Monsanto, would not have entered into settlements but for their work.  In 2020, Bayer announced it planned to settle about 125,000 Roundup claims for an estimated $10.9 billion, but thousands of cases remained unsettled.

The significant reduction in the common benefit fund appeared to influence the committee’s allocation amounts.  For instance, San Francisco’s Andrus Anderson, whose partner Lori Andrus served as co-liaison counsel in the Roundup multidistrict litigation, had wanted closer to $550,000, the amount the firm actually billed, rather than the allocated $200,000, or 1% of the common benefit fees.  The committee, in a response, acknowledged that Andrus Anderson’s request was reasonable.  “But, unfortunately, the limited funds available for distribution in this litigation do not allow this to happen,” the committee wrote.

The committee members are co-lead counsel Aimee Wagstaff, of Wagstaff Law Firm in Denver; Robin Greenwald, of New York’s Weitz & Luxenberg; and David Dickens, who took over following partner Michael Miller’s 2021 death, at the Miller Firm in Orange, Virginia.  Among the fee committee members, Wagstaff Law Firm is set to receive the most, with 30%.

‘Thousands of Hours of Common Benefit Work’

Common benefit fees are used in multidistrict litigation to compensate lead counsel for costs and fees associated with discovery, trials and settlements, while preventing “free riders,” or lawyers who collect fees on cases they generate but don’t necessarily litigate.  Lawyers with related state court cases, in past years, have challenged common benefit fees, which are funded through assessments against their settlements.

Chhabria, in the Northern District of California, called common benefit fees in multidistrict litigation “totally out of control,” sending shock waves through the mass tort bar.  In his Roundup order, he excluded a large amount of the legal work, including state court cases, from being reimbursed through common benefit fees.

Los Angeles-based Wisner Baum and its predecessor, Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman, focused heavily on Roundup cases in California state courts, where partner R. Brent Wisner won verdicts of $289 million, in 2018, and $2 billion, in 2019.  But the firm is set to receive 10% of the fees because “no other firm contributed more to the common benefit of the MDL,” according to the committee’s response, filed on Friday.

The allocation, the committee wrote, is based on Wisner Baum’s “good faith effort” to estimate its time.  But the firm didn’t have adequate billing records that divided up the hours tied to the multidistrict litigation versus state court cases.  The fee committee, as a result, was forced to reduce Wisner Baum’s requested amount.  “Applying such a reduction is consistent with how courts typically handle attorney fee determinations for firms that have failed to submit time records,” the committee wrote.

Jennifer Moore, of Moore Law Group, based in Louisville, Kentucky, was co-lead counsel with Wagstaff in the bellwether trial, which Monsanto appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Moore had argued that 6% was not enough given her work in that case or the $3.4 million her firm contributed to the common benefit fund, but the fee committee countered that the Miller Firm and Weitz & Luxenberg, both lead counsel firms, also anticipate receiving less than they paid.

“Moore Law contributed to the advancement of this MDL.  There is no question about that,” the committee wrote.  “But Moore Law also greatly benefitted from the thousands of hours of common benefit work that was done before it had any involvement in this MDL.”

Another objection came from David Diamond, of Diamond Law in Tucson, Arizona, who insisted he did not rely on lead counsel’s work in his Roundup cases.  He was joined by David Bricker, of Thornton Law Firm in Beverly Hills, California.  Diamond suggested returning the money to lawyers, like them, who took their own risks.

But the committee disputed his characterization.  “Diamond Law was able to resolve 300 MDL cases without having to draft and issue general discovery, brief and argue preemption and other general dispositive motions, depose a single Monsanto employee, or retain general experts in epidemiology, toxicology, pathology, and regulatory affairs,” the committee wrote.  “With this backdrop, it is difficult to comprehend how Diamond Law can boldly declare that it received no assistance from MDL leadership.”

A recent Law 360 story by Aaron West, “Flint Water Crisis Firms Agree To End Settlement Fee Dispute”, reports that three law firms that negotiated a $626 million settlement related to the Flint, Michigan, water crisis reached a settlement of their own after McAlpine PC agreed to end claims that Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PC and Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers PC unfairly cut it out of their original co-counsel agreement.

The Michigan-based firms agreed to dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice or costs, according to an order signed by U.S. District Judge Judith E. Levy.  The judge's order follows the defendant firms urging the court in October to dismiss McAlpine's lawsuit against them after it "sat on its hands for years" before bringing a claim over the settlement split, according to court documents.

The dispute, which McAlpine initially filed in state court, claimed that the Auburn Hills-based firm was only paid a paltry sum by its co-counsel for its contributions to the underlying litigation.  McAlpine argued its work was instrumental to the lawsuit, contributing about $16 million worth of labor, or about 24% of the total lodestar figure of $84.5 million.  But Cohen Milstein and Pitt McGehee offered to pay just $500,000, McAlpine said.

"Defendants breached the co-counsel agreement by failing to distribute an attorney fee award reflecting McAlpine's respective lodestar, in favor of distributing a greater share to themselves," the firm alleged in its complaint.  The defendants argued in a subsequent filing that McAlpine was too late in bringing its claims.  "McAlpine had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the amount of any attorneys fee award in the appropriate place to do so — the federal Flint class action," the defendants said.

The class action at the heart of the law firms' dispute was settled in 2021 when Judge Levy gave final approval to a $626 million settlement, a deal expected to provide payments to more than 100,000 people affected by lead-contaminated water.  Government officials were accused of switching the city's water supply to the Flint River despite information cautioning them against doing so, and working to cover up the ensuing public health crisis.

In December, McAlpine said that the court should deny the firms' request to toss the fees case because it wasn't suing for recovery from the common benefit award, as Cohen Milstein and Pitt McGehee argued. Rather, McAlpine's claims were centered on "breaches of obligations" between the firms that were independent of the Court's order, the firm said.  The defendants' reply said what McAlpine was requesting went against their original agreement.

"McAlpine's argument is not supported anywhere," the defendants wrote.  "To the contrary, McAlpine agreed to work under the supervision of Co-Lead Counsel and the Executive Committee, and never challenged Co-Lead Counsel's authority to apportion fees among class counsel based on their respective roles in the litigation and contributions to the settlement until after the common benefit fee was distributed."

A recent Law.com story by Amanda Bronstad, “Juul Settlements Could Generate $150M in Fees: ‘Everyone Undoubtedly Wishes the Pool Were Larger’”, reports that lawyers plan to ask a federal judge to approve as much as $150 million in fees tied to settlements with Juul Labs Inc. over the vaping epidemic.  The fee award, according to a partially redacted filing from a fee committee, is more than $50 million short of the compensation from nearly 368,000 billable hours incurred in the litigation, which began three years ago, and a rough estimate given that the total value of the Juul settlements remains unknown.

The motion attached an exhibit of allocations, expressed in percentages rather than dollar figures, to some of the 57 firms set to receive fees, including the four in the multidistrict litigation serving on the committee, who are among the top recipients.

At least one lawyer has objected to his own fee allocation.  Esfand Nafisi, who served on numerous committees in the Juul multidistrict litigation, said his firm, the Law Offices of Esfand Nafisi, based in San Anselmo, California, spent more than 10,000 hours on the cases.  “Though a smaller firm, Nafisi law was able to play a key role in this litigation by maintaining a singular focus,” he wrote in a Nov. 27 opposition to the fee motion.

In a Dec. 4 response, the committee said Nafisi’s opposition lacked specifics.  “Reality is that, while everyone undoubtedly wishes the pool were larger, all firms—save one—have abided by the order to which they all agreed three and a half years ago, and under which they all litigated this matter together,” the committee wrote.  “While Mr. Nafisi did provide some common benefit—which is why he was allocated common benefit fees—his contributions do not merit any greater allocation than what the fee committee recommended.”

The fee committee lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.  They are: Sarah London, of San Francisco’s Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein; Dean Kawamoto, of Keller Rohrback in Seattle; Ellen Relkin, of New York’s Weitz & Luxenberg; Dena Sharp, of San Francisco’s Girard Sharp; Paul Kiesel, of Kiesel Law in Beverly Hills, California; and Mark Robinson, of Robinson Calcagnie Inc. in Newport Beach, California.

Orrick is set to take up the $150 million fee motion at a hearing.  The dispute is the latest involving common benefit fees, awarded to lead plaintiffs’ attorneys appointed in multidistrict litigation for their legal efforts but funded through assessments made against settlements of cases involving other lawyers.

In 2021, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California raised red flags about the use of common benefit fees in the Roundup multidistrict litigation, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found it lacked jurisdiction to review the order.  On Aug. 25, the Ninth Circuit upheld common benefit assessments on cases outside the Bard IVC filter multidistrict litigation because the objecting lawyer had signed a participation agreement with lead counsel.

‘Not Totally Revealing’

Juul, facing its first bellwether trial over its electronic cigarettes, reached four separate settlements on Dec. 6, 2022.  The settlements resolved lawsuits brought by government entities, individuals with personal injuries, Native American tribes and consumers with economic claims.  Juul also settled the economic claims in a $255 million class action settlement.  Class counsel in that settlement asked for $76.5 million in fees, which must be approved under Federal Rule 23 of Civil Procedure. Hedley, one of eight objectors to the class settlement, called the billable hours “outrageously inflated on its face.”

On Sept. 19, Orrick granted final approval to the class action settlement but held off awarding fees until he received the fee committee’s report on the common benefit fund.  Plaintiffs’ lawyers initially sought to seal portions of their fee motion, citing “certain terms of confidential settlements,” but, after Hedley and Nafisi objected to the request, Orrick issued a Dec. 7 order to show cause why the information should remain under seal.  He granted part of the request and ordered plaintiffs’ lawyers to file their fee motion with fewer redactions.

“What they submitted un-redacted is a bit more revealing, but it’s not totally revealing in terms of what is the overall denominator that we’re talking about,” Hedley said.  “This additional information that’s come out from the fee committee is relevant to the arguments that we advanced in our initial objection.”

In their fee motion, plaintiffs’ lawyers referenced more than $24 million in common benefit costs paid in advance for the litigation by firms now set to receive fees.  The common benefit fund is paid for by a 7% holdback of fees paid to individual lawyers for their Juul settlements.  The motion excludes compensation tied to a $235 million settlement with Altria, which has a 35% stake in Juul. Altria settled earlier this year while in the midst of a trial against the San Francisco Unified School District.

A recent article by Judge Marina Corodemus and Mark Eveland, “Four Ways Plaintiffs’ Firm Can Prevent Common Benefit Fund Fee Disputes”, reports on ways plaintiffs’ firms can prevent common benefit fund fee disputes.  This article was posted with permission.  The article reads:

Common benefit funds (CBFs) ensure fairness and equity in the distribution of legal fees and expenses in aggregate and complex litigation, including class actions, mass torts, trust and securities, and multidistrict litigations (MDLs), where the litigation is prosecuted by either an ad hoc or judicially appointed committee or team of attorneys.  Their primary purpose is to recognize and compensate the plaintiffs’ attorneys who contribute their time, expertise, and resources to advancing the interests of most, if not all, of the plaintiffs in a particular litigation, including litigants who are not their clients but are benefited by the attorneys’ work product prosecuting the suit.

CBFs provide a compensation mechanism that enables large scale, highly expensive complex class actions and mass torts to proceed.  They provide the financial incentive for plaintiffs’ attorney groups to organize and then collect and centralize financial contributions and disbursements necessary to fund critical litigation activities like document management and reviews, scientific or factual investigations, expert recruitment, and, where needed, retention of specialized legal experts (such as bankruptcy, tax, and transactional practitioners).  CBFs help ensure that no single attorney or firm shoulders the entire financial burden of the legal work that puts the plaintiffs in complex litigation in position to resolve the litigation favorably.  When appropriately managed, CBFs reward attorneys and firms for doing work that benefits the greater good.

Certainly, attorneys who take on the risks and leadership roles in complex litigation deserve fair compensation for their efforts.  But lately, there seems to be a larger number of disputes over disbursements from CBFs among the plaintiffs’ firms involved in complex litigation (so called “Common Benefit Attorneys”) when and where such disbursements are forthcoming.  These disputes often garner public attention, perpetuating a narrative that plaintiffs’ attorneys are motivated solely by greed and self-interest.  Certain defense firms whose clientele often are mass tort defendants and advocacy organizations—the entities most responsible for creating this narrative in the first place—are happy to use those disputes as part of their public relations efforts supporting “tort reform.”

The pelvic mesh MDL, established in 2010 and which involved over 100,000 female plaintiffs suing seven companies in what is undoubtedly one of the most complicated MDLs in history because it is a series of seven MDLs (MDL nos. 2187, 2325, 2326, 2327, 2387, 2440 and 2511) consolidated in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, is an example of how a highly publicized CBF dispute can cast a shadow on the legal profession.  That dispute, like so many other CBF disputes, centered on whether certain law firms deserved the allotted fees from the CBF that the members of the plaintiffs’ executive committee in that litigation allocated to them.

And, just this past August, the Ninth Circuit settled a dispute—for now—in the Bard IVC filters litigation, In Re Bard IVC Filters Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2641 (D. Ariz.), established in 2015, regarding whether plaintiffs’ attorneys who agree to contribute to common benefit funds in MDLs are bound by those deals if they settle cases that were not part of an MDL.

In our view, there are four principal causes of CBF disputes.  We list them below, along with strategies for preventing them.

1.  A lack of billing standards and concurrent billing and time/expense review can be readily avoided through precise case management orders (CMOs) and clear billing guidelines.

Many CBF disputes are caused by the absence of well-defined requirements and standards for billing common benefit time and expenses.  Ambiguity surrounding billing practices leads to inconsistencies in the way attorneys record and submit their costs, giving rise to misunderstandings and disputes when fees are allocated.  Additionally, the lack of a standardized framework and mechanics for billing and expenses complicates attorneys’ perceptions of the fairness and validity of fee requests, in turn potentially eroding trust among plaintiffs’ firms.  Without clear and precise billing standards in place, and an evenhanded administration of those standards, it becomes challenging to objectively gauge the contributions of each attorney and firm.

Implementing comprehensive case management orders (CMOs) and clear billing guidelines can prevent CBF disputes.  CMOs should not only specify the tasks that qualify for compensation but also the allowable rates and expenses.  In doing so, they will provide an independent standard to reference when disputes arise.

For instance, a standardized CMO might include a provision stating that research tasks directly related to the case, such as reviewing medical records or consulting with expert witnesses, are billable, while unrelated tasks, like administrative work, are not.  (Of course, in highly complicated cases requiring extensive coordination and collaboration, administrative work may certainly be deemed permitted billable time.)  In addition, it is well established that there is a hierarchy of value for work that has a greater impact on the litigation and generates more “common benefit.”  Such work deserves greater compensation.  A CMO and related agreements can specify this hierarchy, providing guidelines for determining what kind of work generates a common benefit, and calculating the fees to be paid for this work.

CMOs and agreements as to billing guidelines are binding and provide clarity needed during fee allocation in MDL cases, potentially preventing major fee disputes.

For example, the CBF dispute in the pelvic mesh litigation arose in part because of a disagreement over what work provided more of a common benefit: the settlement of cases quickly and for relatively small dollar amounts or high-dollar jury verdicts.  Ultimately, Judge Joseph R. Goodwin of the Southern District of West Virginia granted a request from a fee and cost committee in that litigation that deemed the former to provide more common benefit than the latter.

The Bard IVC filters litigation provides another useful illustrative case.  There, some plaintiffs’ attorneys moved to reduce and exempt their clients’ recoveries from common benefit and expense assessments, arguing that no assessment should be paid by clients whose cases were filed in federal court after the MDL closed, were filed in state court, or were never filed in any court. U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell of the District of Arizona denied this motion.  As we noted above, the Ninth Circuit affirmed Campbell’s ruling, holding that these attorneys, who had agreed to pay a share of their fees to the MDL leaders, were required to abide by those agreements even if they settled cases outside of the consolidated proceeding.

Agreed-upon CMOs that set forth procedures, guidelines, and limitations for submitting applications for reimbursement of litigation fees and expenses inuring to the claimants’ common benefit can be instrumental in resolving or avoiding CBF disputes.

2.  The problems caused by late submissions of billing records can be avoided by requiring attorneys to make regular, contemporaneous submissions.

Another frequent cause of CBF disputes is attorneys delaying their submission of billing records.  Too often, attorneys and their support teams, engrossed in all-consuming complex litigation, fail to timely submit their time and expense records.  Attorneys sometimes submit crucial billing details months or even years after the fact, making it necessary for others to “forensically” reconstruct this information, a practice that not only jeopardizes the accuracy of time and expense submissions but may result in crucial work being overlooked or submitted without adequate supporting documentation. 

Delayed submissions also prevent courts and plaintiffs’ leadership teams from performing comprehensive and accurate assessments of work described in billing submissions.

CMOs or fee committees that mandate the regular submission of time and expense records can put an end to this problem.  As was the case in the pelvic mesh MDL, adopting CMOs that include specific provisions requiring attorneys to submit their time and expense records at regular intervals throughout a litigation significantly enhances efficiency and transparency.  These CMOs may, for instance, stipulate that detailed records must be submitted monthly or quarterly, with a reduction in potential compensation for any submissions beyond agreed-upon deadlines. 

This practice ensures that time and expense records are submitted relatively promptly after attorneys perform the work described in them, capturing the most accurate information (and fresh memories).  The regular submission of records also enables the court and MDL leadership to compare billing records with case calendars to determine if the work completed and the time spent completing it is consistent with expectations of when that work should have been completed and how long it should have taken.

3.  The lack of independent oversight can be remedied by bringing on a neutral.

When plaintiffs’ leadership teams collect, review, and approve CBF allocations, and stand to benefit personally from those decisions, it is easy to see how this lack of independent oversight can cause CBF disputes and give rise to accusations of conflicts of interest and self-dealing.  Appointing a neutral third party to oversee time and expense submissions to the CBF and mediate disputes can remedy this problem. 

This impartial overseer should be an independent legal expert or mediator with no vested interest in the litigation outcome, which should preclude accusations of conflicts of interest and self-dealing.  This neutral party should also be empowered to enforce deadlines for submissions, review and evaluate the reasonableness of time and expenses submissions, disallow submissions containing excessive time and expenses, and swiftly address any discrepancies that arise during the allocation process.

Some attorneys and judges are satisfied with handing off the issues at the center of a CBF dispute to an accountant.  We would suggest that the calculations necessary to resolve such a dispute require more than a bookkeeping background.  We believe hiring a neutral who is experienced in mass torts litigation and awarding attorneys’ fees, and who recognizes the worth of litigation roles, is a superior selection method.

4.  Disputes caused by an opaque process could be reduced by making it more transparent.

Inadequate transparency is a major cause of CBF disputes.  Those attorneys and firms that are not in leadership positions often have limited knowledge of the fees and expenses incurred as the litigation progresses, which could make them feel blindsided when their allocated fees are less than those they submitted.  Without ongoing and timely communication regarding billing submissions and allocations, attorneys and firms outside the leadership circle may question the fairness and reasonableness of both.

The solution to this problem is simple.  Leadership committees in complex litigation should provide all law firms that pay assessments into the CBF with regular reports that explain time and expense submissions.  In addition, every firm could ask questions of the people responsible for submitting those bills and allocating distributions from a CBF.

Attorneys whose inquiries are addressed by leadership and a court-appointed neutral throughout the process are far less likely to contest fee allocations at the conclusion.  Plus, increased transparency enhances confidence among plaintiffs’ firms, fostering greater trust and a more cooperative environment.

Simple solutions to a complex problem?

Given the time plaintiffs’ attorneys spend litigating complex litigation, it is not surprising that they want to ensure they are paid for the work they did that went to the common benefit of the plaintiffs in a litigation.  But given the number of attorneys and firms representing clients in these litigations, and the sizes of CBFs in complex litigation today—the CBF in the Vioxx litigation, In re Vioxx Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1657 (E.D. La.), established in 2005, was $315 million—disputes over whether those attorneys’ contributions are fairly reflected in their CBF allocation are practically inevitable.

In our view, the core four causes of CBF disputes can be reduced in frequency and severity, if not outright eliminated, by implementing standardized billing practices, promoting timely billing submissions, and instituting impartial oversight and increasing transparency concerning the CBF allocation process.

Unless plaintiffs’ attorneys can eliminate CBF disputes, the positive social change they can bring about through complex litigation will be overshadowed by what the public—thanks in part to the corporate defense bar and advocacy organizations—will perceive as greedy attorneys bickering over millions of dollars.  That, in and of itself, should motivate more plaintiffs’ leadership teams to adopt these methods for reducing CBF disputes.

Judge Marina Corodemus is a former New Jersey Superior Court judge who helped establish New Jersey Mass Torts court (MCL).  She is now the managing partner of the ADR practice at Corodemus & Corodemus.  She has served as a special master in numerous MDLs and complex litigation in federal and state courts.  Mark Eveland is the CEO of Verus, a leading mass tort litigation support services firm.

A recent Business Insurance article by Iran Valentin and Allison Scott, “Perspectives: Understanding Attorney Fee Shifting to Mitigate Exposures”, reports on the importance of understanding attorney fee-shifting in litigation to mitigate risk.  This article was posted with permission.  The article reads:

The availability of attorneys fees is a significant concern to policyholders.  Without the potential to recover the fees, most dubious claims and suits related to employment law and consumer protection, for example, would not be pursued.  The potential of a fee recovery also drives up the cost of resultant litigation, settlements and awards.  Thus, a double-headed monster emerges: an increase in the number of claims and an increase in exposure, which can eventually drive up the costs of insurance.

An existential threat that exists for corporations is a “nuclear verdict,” or a runaway jury award.  These huge verdicts grew in the face of incessant legal advertising by plaintiffs attorneys and the resultant slanted narrative effectively desensitized potential jurors to the value of money and preemptively taints prospective jury pools.

Within this context, it is more important than ever for insurance professionals and defense counsel to understand the significance of attorney-fee shifting.  When crafting a defense strategy, many factors are considered, including the nature of the alleged loss, the profiles of the litigants, the reputation of the claimants’ counsel, recent jury verdicts and the jurisdiction.  Equally as important should be considering the effect of fee-shifting, to develop strategies to mitigate that exposure.

Remedial legislation

Basically, fee-shifting requires a losing party in litigation to pay a prevailing party’s attorneys fees.  It represents a departure from the “American Rule,” which generally provides that each party to a litigation will bear their own fees.  However, fee-shifting statutes have continued to grow, especially in the areas of employment and consumer protection, or so-called remedial legislation.

One of the purposes of remedial legislation is to introduce policies intended to benefit the public good, including anti-discrimination, anti-retaliation and consumer protection.  The policies enable fee-shifting provisions so alleged victims have access to competent legal representation.  It is not always the alleged victims who seek vindication, but rather lawyers who make a market in an area where attorneys fees are available.

Fee-shifting is sometimes a misnomer, as the availability of fees under enabling law is often limited to a prevailing plaintiff, as opposed to a prevailing defendant.  Under those laws, legislators seek to avoid the creation of a “chilling effect,” in dissuading potential plaintiffs and their lawyers from pursuing a claim.

Some laws allow for more traditional fee-shifting, by allowing prevailing defendants to recover defense fees for claims that lack merit or are brought in bad faith.  While a prevailing party may be awarded fees under a fee-shifting law, there is often attendant litigation over who constitutes a “prevailing party.”  Generally, a prevailing party is one who achieves a substantial proportion of the relief sought, whether or not that party actually obtains a verdict.  Courts have held that parties may not only prevail by judgment but also by compromise or settlement. 

In at least one jurisdiction, fee-shifting has also been made available in the professional liability context.  In New Jersey, the precedential 1996 case of Saffer v. Willoughby allowed a successful plaintiff to recover attorneys fees in prosecuting a legal malpractice action.  The New Jersey Supreme Court held that a negligent attorney is responsible for resulting legal fees and costs.  Interestingly, those fees were not considered fee-shifting, but “consequential damages” flowing from the attorney’s negligence.  New Jersey courts also allow recovery of fees by a third-party if the attorney intentionally breaches a recognized duty owed to a non-client, such as when serving as a fiduciary. 

The “common fund” and “substantial benefit” doctrines are also court-created fee-shifting mechanisms.  The common fund doctrine applies where litigation has created or preserved a common fund for the benefit of a group of people — such as a class action — and, accordingly, an attorney may be awarded attorneys fees out of that fund.  The substantial benefit doctrine applies if a judgment confers a substantial benefit on a defendant, such as in a corporate derivative action, which could lead to the payment by the defendant of the attorneys fees incurred by the plaintiff. 

Outside of the statutory and court-created fee-shifting framework, parties to a contract may agree to fee-shifting provisions.  Commercial contracts quite commonly contain default provisions that call for the payment of attorneys fees to a prevailing party in a dispute to enforce the terms of the agreement.

In most jurisdictions, attorneys fees that are awarded pursuant to a fee-shifting statute are calculated by setting a “lodestar,” which is the number of hours reasonably expended by an attorney multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate in the jurisdiction. Courts have the flexibility to adjust the lodestar considering certain factors, such as the results obtained by the attorney; the time and labor required to obtain that result; the attorney’s skill; the attorney’s customary fee; the amount of money involved in the claim; and awards in similar cases.

If the prevailing party has only achieved partial or limited success, the requested lodestar may be considered excessive and reduced.  Moreover, the attorney’s presentation of time billed must be set forth with sufficient detail, based on appropriate rates and in compliance with the jurisdiction’s ethical requirements.

Determining exposure

When a claim arises, insurance professionals and defense counsel should determine whether the policyholder is exposed to any court rule, statute, regulation or case law that allows fee-shifting or an award of attorneys fees.  They should also conduct an early assessment of liability and damages and consider early avenues to resolution to mitigate the exposure to fee-shifting.  Depending on the jurisdiction, defense counsel may be able to craft strategies designed to cabin the availability of attorneys fees, helping to drive resolution.  These are good faith strategies and methods employed during a case to drive resolution and also mitigate the exposure to attorneys fees. 

Often, a reasonable settlement curbing increased fees and costs is the second-best result outside of obtaining an early dismissal.  However, it is important to take care during settlement negotiations and the drafting of settlement agreements, releases and stipulations resolving litigation to account for attorneys fees and costs.  Lack of attention or poor drafting could result in unintended consequences, including the imposition of a fee award. 

When an adverse judgment calls for the imposition of an award of attorneys fees, strategies can still be employed to curb a disproportionately excessive fee claim, by relying on mitigation strategies employed at the outset designed to limit the recovery of fees; exposing the limited success of a claimant; exposing an adversary’s wastefulness during the dispute; questioning the proofs submitted in support of the fee claim; and otherwise contesting the reasonableness of the fee claim.

Iram Valentin is co-chair of the professional liability practice group in the Hackensack, New Jersey, office of Kaufman Dolowich LLP.   Allison Scott is an associate at the firm.

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