DLA Piper has issued a memo (pdf) is response to The New York Times story, “Suit Offers a Peek at the Practice of Inflating a Legal Bill” and in response to the suit, DLA Piper v. Victor.  In that suit, former client Adam Victor says court exhibits show DLA attorneys discussing deliberate overbilling on his bankruptcy case.  In one 2010 email, a then-DLA attorney refers to a “churn that bill, baby!” approach and says “that bill shall know no limits.” 

The law firm in a public statement said: “We hold ourselves to the highest legal and ethical standards.  The behavior as described is unacceptable to DLA Piper and our clients.  The emails were in fact an offensive and inexcusable effort at humor, but in no way reflect actual excessive billing.”

Roger Meltzer, DLA Piper United States co-chair, said in an interview that DLA attorneys were answering calls from clients yesterday and others reached out to in-house counsel on their own.  Meltzer said no clients have cut off ties as a result of the exposure of the emails and he believed the firm would not suffer a loss of revenue or client relationship.  Clients have been “enormously supportive,” and know the emails are not related to the firm’s standards, performance or billing practices, he said.

Victor’s suit was in response to a fee collection action initiated by DLA to collect $675,000 in unpaid legal fees.  In the Victor case, the firm believes it provided legal services that ought to be paid for.  He said DLA wouldn’t sue a client “if we were not confident in the appropriateness of a bill.”  The memo went on to say, “our bills and billing practices undergo the most sophisticated reviews and audits by clients who employ such techniques as a standard practice in connection with outside counsel billings.”

“There’s been a little overreaction to this story from some on the corporate side,” said Terry Jesse, executive director of NALFA.  "Some are using this story to claim overbilling is widespread at DLA and other law firms.  But it’s important to keep in mind that law firms are not monolithic.  There are internal practice groups within law firms that manage cases.  If the emails were more than inappropriate humor, it could be the case that this bankruptcy case was inefficiently managed by a practice group within DLA,” Jesse concluded.