Lawyers for 9/11 Workers Ordered to Justify Charging Clients $6.1M for Loan Interest
While much of the actual, 9/11 physical dust that harmed ground zero workers has settled, the dustup over lawyer fees and costs is growing—including some high-stakes finger pointing between two plaintiffs firms.
A federal judge handling the matters concerning injured workers called two firms who have formed a partnership—Worby Groner Edelman and Napoli Bern Ripka—in for a hearing sometime today to explain why they should collect $6.1 million from the payouts to cover interest on loans the lawyers took to finance their cases, the New York Times reported.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who sits in Manhattan, then will get or give another earful next week in a spat between two of the plaintiffs law firms, with one saying the other has been overcharging, according to the New York Times.
Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo has told the judge that its co-counsel, identified as the Napoli firm in court papers, was simply trying to inflate fees.
That prompted Paul J. Napoli, in an interview with the Times, to throw a dart in return, saying his firm had put a lot of money into developing the cases and that Sullivan Papain “could sit back and ride our coattails.”
Napoli told the Times that because of this his firm will ask the judge to give it half of Sullivan Papain’s legal fees in the cases.
In June, Judge Hellerstein, salvaging a controversial settlement, told the Worby Groner and Napoli Bern partnership that he would cap their contingency fees at 20 percent, holding them to $115 million instead of as much as $657 million.
