Does Legal Fees Motion in $590M Citigroup Case Include $1K Per Hour for Low-Paid Contract Lawyers?

ABA Journal reports on Ted Frank's objections to the lawyers' marked up fee claims in a class action lawsuit where most of the work was done by contract attorneys for a fraction of the cost.

A protester has filed an objection to a legal-fees request in a securities case settled by Citigroup for $590 million, contending that the lead plaintiffs law firm is trying to charge $1,000 per hour for some contract attorneys who were actually paid only a small fraction of that amount.

Attorney Ted Frank of the Center for Class Action Fairness says in the Dec. 21 filing that the fee request by Kirby McInerney “is based on the false premise that an unemployed real-estate lawyer doing first-tier securities litigation document review as a temporary contract attorney has a market rate of $550/hour,” Forbes reports.

Read the full article at ABA Journal.