The Fifth Circuit for a long time has seemed to insist on paying class counsel on a pure lodestar basis — hours x hourly rates. It looked to have stuck itself to the old-style lodestar method under Johnson v. Ga. Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (5th Cir. 1974).
That contrasts with other circuits'
Some people think most class actions exist to reward the lawyers, not the members of the class. Blawgletter doesn't think that, but some people do.
And then a case like In re Bluetooth Headset Products Liability Litig., No. 09-56683 (9th Cir. Aug. 19, 2011), comes along. It likely didn't start as a platform for
The Seventh Circuit last week settled a battle over a fee award to class counsel by lifting a cap that, the court held, the district court set for no good reason. But only one lawyer got the benefit of the rising tide. In re Trans Union Corp. Privacy Litig., No. 10-1154 (7th Cir. Jan.
A lawyer who takes a case on an hourly basis expects to collect her lodestar — hours times hourly rate — no matter the outcome.
The same lawyer, when she works on contingent fee basis, plans to earn more than her lodestar if she wins. The bonus rewards her for sharing the client's risk.
So
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation meets several times a year to hear lawyers explain why cases pending in two or more district courts belong in just one and which district court should handle them during pretrial stages. Lately, the Panel has rebuffed more than half of the motions to transfer (see here also), holding the
Attorney Lionel Hutz graduated from Princeton School of Law. He seldom won and cobbled shoes to pay the bills.
The Third Circuit today affirmed orders that awarded about $567 million in "common fund" fees. The money goes to law firms that helped win $6.44 billion in settlement funds. The claims asserted that Wyeth's weight loss drugs, fen-phen (fenfluramine