Judge Blasts Md. Law Firm for Seeking ‘Windfall’ Fees in Sept. 11 Cases

A federal judge in New York has blasted a Baltimore law firm for seeking “windfall” fees of 25 percent in four Sept. 11 settlements, which he also deemed to be too high.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein of Manhattan overturned the settlements negotiated by the law firm, Azrael, Gann & Franz, the New York Times reports. The judge said the firm’s “entire strategy seems to have been to coast on the work of others” by entering into settlement talks late in the litigation.

The firm’s request for 25 percent of the $28.5 million in settlements “would reflect a very large windfall,” Hellerstein said. He also called the settlement amounts “disproportionately large” when compared with similar cases.

Hellerstein said the settlements were reached on behalf of four “modest wage earners” who died when Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

"The wounds of 9/11 will not easily be assuaged," Hellerstein said, according to an account in the New York Daily News. "But neither should they be exacerbated by rich rewards of fees and benign indifference to unreasonably large awards."