Former Drinker Biddle staff attorney is suspended for overbilling the firm for his work
A former staff attorney for Drinker Biddle & Reath has been suspended for overbilling the law firm on a document review project.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court suspended Philadelphia lawyer Benjamin Hart Perkel for two years, report the Legal Intelligencer and the Legal Profession Blog, which links to the decision and the joint petition for discipline (PDF). The suspension is retroactive to June 2014, when Perkel was placed on interim suspension.
Perkel earned $40 an hour for his work at Drinker Biddle, according to the joint petition for discipline. For a period of about one year, beginning in late 2011, Perkel spent 1,303 hours on document review tasks, but reported spending 1,721.5 hours, overbilling the firm by 418.5 hours, the joint petition says.
Perkel self-reported his conduct to ethics authorities and agreed to pay the firm $12, 250 for wages received but not earned.
The firm billed the client for Perkel’s time at $245 an hour. By the time the firm discovered the overbilling, the client had paid nearly $50,000 for the wrongly billed time.
Drinker Biddle chairman Andrew Kassner told the Legal Intelligencer he was glad the firm’s internal controls allowed the firm to discover the overbilling. The client has been reimbursed not only for the amount overbilled, but for all time billed by Perkel on the matter.
