A recent The Montana Standard story, “Attorneys in Asbestos Settlement Seek $4M in Fees,” reports that attorneys for asbestos victims in a Montana mining town are seeking more than $4 million in attorney fees and expenses out of a legal settlement with chemical company W.R. Grace.  State District Judge James Wheelis has ordered a March 1 fairness hearing on the fee request, recently submitted by a group of lawyers who said they spend more than 16,000 hours of work into the case that lasted over 11 years.

Last year’s settlement followed decades of asbestos exposure from a Grace mine outside the town on Libby that so far has killed an estimated 400 people and sickened more than 2,000.  In documents submitted to the court, the plaintiffs’ attorneys described their fee request as reasonable given the time and effort they put into suits filed against Grace.  It equals about 20 percent of the $19.6 million that Grace last year agreed to put into a trust fund set up to help Libby residents cover medical expenses.

Total costs and fees requested topped $5 million, but almost $1 million of that amount would be returned for the benefit of the victims, according to documents filed by the attorneys.  The attorneys said they were entitled to up to 40 percent of their client’s share of the settlement under their retainer contracts, but opted for a lesser percentage that would come from all qualifying victims and not just the attorneys’ clients.

The medical trust fund set up with the Grace settlement funds has enough money to last about five years, said trust administrator and Missoula attorney Nancy Gibson.  The trust money is being used to cover the victims’ premiums for Medicare or comparable private insurance policies, said Gibson.  Gibson said that the fee request was not out of line given the time and effort the attorneys put into the case.  She added the attorneys have been working unpaid to persuade Medicare administrators to forgive money owed to the government by some victims.