Law Firms
Suit Claims WilmerHale ‘Churned’ Representation of CFO to Inflate Fees
Posted Jul 22, 2008, 05:46 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
McAfee Inc. claims WilmerHale “churned the representation” of its former chief financial officer, costing $12 million in legal fees.
The lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of Texas earlier this year accuses the law firm of fraud, theft, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, the Recorder reports.
WilmerHale “intentionally overworked and churned the representation of [former CFO Prabhat] Goyal; shamelessly employing over 100 WilmerHale timekeepers in the feeding frenzy," the suit alleges. "Defendant's bills reflect at least 16 partners, 34 associate attorneys, 10 legal assistants and 49 staff personnel--how else could they amass this enormous trove of cash?"
The suit also claims lawyers who traveled to San Francisco to represent Goyal at trial charged almost $200,000 in expenses for luxury hotel rooms, limousines, room service and alcohol, the story says.
A statement issued by WilmerHale says the suit is only a pretext to avoid paying the legal fees of Goyal, and its legal services were necessary and reasonable. Its motion seeking dismissal of the complaint notes the law firm had to produce and review 1.2 million documents in the case.
Houston lawyer Paul Yetter, who represents WilmerHale in the case, told the Recorder that more than 80 percent of the work in the case was done by two lead partners and a handful of associates. The other timekeepers were needed for document review.
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Posted by associate - 1 month, 2 weeks, 8 hours, 27 minutes ago
These fee challenges are only going to drive the bills up. Particularly when you’re just alleging “churning”. I mean, if you have a specific point to make, then by all means, sue your former counsel, but when you complaint is “you spent too much time doing this job, you only deserve ~80% of your billed time” then these lawsuits are just going to make firms bill more initially to cover the defense of their fees. These suits are just becoming too common. If a firm is expensive, either buck up, or find a cheaper firm to begin with if you know that’s an issue for you.
Posted by kay sieverding - 1 month, 1 week, 6 days, 14 hours, 34 minutes ago
I was a self represented plaintiff. My defendants had some sort of arrangement with the magistrate who ordered me to pay their legal bills without them filing rule 11 motions, getting rule 11 c. 6 orders, or fining a counterclaim. They were trying to run up the bills but they didn’t do much because they skipped an answer, discovery, interviewing witnesses, or responding to my summary judgment motion. What they did to run up their bills was talk to each other and call the court. Also, they violated rule 11. For instance, when I pled inter-organization conspiracy under section 1983, they answered with 27 anti-trust cases involving intra-organization communication.
What I would like to know is how much the legal bills really run in a well managed tort case. When a party is trying to make a decision as to whether to represent themselves of not, if they had an honest lawyer, and the other side was honest, what is the potential savings? In my case, part of my decision to go pro se was that someone else sued the same city government and city council members and his bills were reportedly over $100,000 before there was any discovery or answer. I heard that the defense strategy was to bankrupt him with legal bills. That was supposedly stated by a city council member and was apparently implemented by management of a government financed insurance policy for public officials errors and omissions.