A recent NLJ story, “Use of Contingent Fees Challenged in Robo-Signing Case,” reports that the Nevada Supreme Court is expected to take up arguments in a high-profile robo-signing case in which a mortgage processing firm is challenging the legal authority of the state’s attorney general to hire Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll on a contingency fee basis. In its brief, Lender Processing Services Inc. argues that the attorney general’s office violated the state law in hiring Cohen Milstein on a contingency fee basis and that granted the outside law firm considerable authority in the case.   The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Tort Reform Association filed an amicus brief in the case.

LPS has petitioned the state’s high court to overturn a ruling that allowed Cohen Milstein’s Betsy Miller to be associated as counsel to Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.  Masto has a pending complaint alleging that Lender’s robo-signing operation contributed to the state’s economic recession.

“We have a long tradition of the private attorney general doctrine in American Jurisprudence, where private lawyers work on important public interest litigation” said Terry Jesse, executive director of NALFA.  “This is a partisan effort by the tort reform lobby to weaken that doctrine.  Of course state AGs should be allowed to hire contingency fee lawyers.  In fact, it makes economic sense to only hire contingency fee lawyers because it aligns the state’s interests with outside counsel’s interests -- win the case,” Jesse concluded.