Treasury Offers $11M ‘Bailout Love’ to Hughes Hubbard and Squire Sanders

Law Firms

Treasury Offers $11M ‘Bailout Love’ to Hughes Hubbard and Squire Sanders

Posted Nov 4, 2008, 06:56 pm CST
By Martha Neil

Economic crisis has brought big-bucks government contracts to two well-known law firms.

Hughes Hubbard & Reed and Squire Sanders & Dempsey have each been awarded $5.5 million contracts to help approximately 2,000 financial firms apply for a share of the money being spent by the U.S. Treasury Department under a federal bailout plan expected to cost taxpayers some $750 billion, reports Reuters.

Termed "bailout love" by the Above the Law blog, the government contracts with the law firms are linked to an AmLaw daily post about the Treasury largesse.

Comments

Report Abuse

Posted by PAN - 2 months, 3 days, 11 hours, 13 minutes ago

The issue of the appropriateness of hourly billing is finally solved!
Posted by george - 2 months, 1 day, 16 hours, 4 minutes ago

What a scam by the government and these two law firms!

Our tax dollars are going to pay rich ivy leauge lawyers bail out their rich ivy league banker friends.

These CEO’s need to be going to jail!!!!!!!

The accountants and lawyers who worked on these projects need to be disbared as well.!
Posted by apartner - 2 months, 1 day, 15 hours, 28 minutes ago

Neither HH nor SSD did much subprime or other securitization work. They’re both excellent firm with experience with bank capital transactions, so it’s a good choice.
Posted by Ed Weber - 2 months, 1 day, 14 hours, 36 minutes ago

I am a sole practictioner and I just got a notice of disconnection of my phone service because I failed to pay last month’s phone bill within 30 days due to a simple over cite. I have excellent credit and this is the first time in 37 years of practice that I haven’t paid my phone bill within 30 days. And then I have to read this fat cat welfare artricle. Why aren’t lawyer’s in the streets like Pakistan’s legal community??
Posted by Incredulous - 2 months, 1 day, 14 hours, 27 minutes ago

This is unbelivably amazing. The financial firms are unable to even APPLY for aid themselves? Or they cannot use their in-house counsel to apply for them? Why is this money being wasted? There should be an investigation of this “love” and the law firms should be disparaged publicly until they give the money back to the taxpayers. And people wonder why we have a deficit and government spending is through the roof?
Posted by Mad - 2 months, 1 day, 14 hours, 13 minutes ago

What a joke. Why is my tax dollars being spent on these two law firms salaries?

Enough is enough
Posted by AB - 2 months, 1 day, 13 hours, 23 minutes ago

The firms are representing the government, not the applicants. The price tag does seem high, but would it be better for the USG to hire a solo practitioner to assist with these transactions? Or perhaps they shouldn’t even use lawyers at all?
Posted by tpp - 2 months, 1 day, 12 hours, 59 minutes ago

Pigs at the trough.
Posted by wall street amnesty - 2 months, 1 day, 12 hours, 56 minutes ago

People aren’t upset at the big firms being used here. We are upset that our tax dollars are being used to pay both the plaintiff and defendant’s legal bills.

When is the USG going to hire a special prosecutor to sue the CEO, the Board, the lawyers, accountants of Freddie, Fannie, Lehman, etc to recover the cost of all this. I want to see those guys either paying back this money, bankrupt and homeless, or in jail.
Posted by Sara V - 2 months, 1 day, 12 hours, 9 minutes ago

Hey guys,

Are you sending these excellent comments to your senators and reps in DC? It’s not enough to complain to a blog!
Posted by ME - 2 months, 1 day, 10 hours, 48 minutes ago

I am not a banking lawyer so I am curious to know what the basis of the prosecution would be. Breach of fiduciary duty would need have to be brought by shareholders, I believe. Fraud? Intentional infliction of emotional distress on the whole country?
Posted by DH - 1 month, 4 weeks, 11 hours, 24 minutes ago

Touche Sara V. You can go to the site below to share your vision with the new administration. http://change.gov/page/s/yourvision

Commenting has expired on this post.

ABA Journal - Law News Now

Law Firms