Law Commons^™

Ethical Limits On Promising To Pay An Adverse Award Of Attorney’S Fees Against One’S Client, Chase C. Parsons

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Abstract forthcoming.

Thomas Collentine, Jr., Et Al., Order Granting In Part And Denying In Part Merrill Lynch's Evidentiary Application For Attorney's Fees, John J. Goger

Georgia Business Court Opinions

No abstract provided.

Distributing Attorney Fees In Multidistrict Litigation, Edward K. Cheng, Paul H. Edelman, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

As consolidated multidistrict litigation has come to dominate the federal civil docket, the problem of how to divide attorney fees among participating firms has become the source of frequent and protracted litigation. For example, in the National Football League (NFL) Concussion Litigation, the judge awarded the plaintiff attorneys over $100 million in fees, but the division of those fees among the twenty-six firms involved sparked two additional years of litigation. We explore solutions to this fee division problem, drawing insights from the economics, game theory, and industrial organization literatures. Ultimately, we propose a novel division method based on peer reports. …

Mootness Fees, Matthew D. Cain, Jill E. Fisch, Steven Davidoff Solomon, Randall Thomas

All Faculty Scholarship

In response to a sharp increase in litigation challenging mergers, the Delaware Chancery Court issued the 2016 Trulia decision, which substantively reduced the attractiveness of Delaware as a forum for these suits. In this Article, we empirically assess the response of plaintiffs’ attorneys to these developments. Specifically, we document a troubling trend—the flight of merger litigation to federal court where these cases are overwhelmingly resolved through voluntary dismissals that provide no benefit to the plaintiff class but generate a payment to plaintiffs’ counsel in the form of a mootness fee. In 2018, for example, 77% of deals with litigation were …

On Drugs: Preemption, Presumption, And Remedy, Elizabeth Mccuskey

Faculty Scholarship

This essay explores the role of litigation in drug safety regulation and the role of drug safety regulation in litigation, exemplified by the 2017 National Health Law Moot Court Problem. Using the example of failure-to-update claims against generic drug manufacturers, this essay argues that pharmaceutical preemption doctrine would benefit from a tailored application of the presumption against preemption. It proposes a presumption that Congress does not intend to displace historic state remedies for injury without clearly saying so, focusing on the role of remedy to account for the evolving overlap in federal and state police powers over health and to …

Class Actions And The Counterrevolution Against Federal Litigation, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

All Faculty Scholarship

In this article we situate consideration of class actions in a framework, and fortify it with data, that we have developed as part of a larger project, the goal of which is to assess the counterrevolution against private enforcement of federal law from an institutional perspective. In a series of articles emerging from the project, we have documented how the Executive, Congress and the Supreme Court (wielding both judicial power under Article III of the Constitution and delegated legislative power under the Rules Enabling Act) fared in efforts to reverse or dull the effects of statutory and other incentives for …

The Law Of Attorney Fees In Family Law Cases, Robert G. Spector, Carolyn S. Thompson

Robert G. Spector

No abstract provided.

Class Actions And The Counterrevolution Against Federal Litigation, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang

Sean Farhang

In this article we situate consideration of class actions in a framework, and fortify it with data, that we have developed as part of a larger project, the goal of which is to assess the counterrevolution against private enforcement of federal law from an institutional perspective. In a series of articles emerging from the project, we have documented how the Executive, Congress and the Supreme Court (wielding both judicial power under Article III of the Constitution and delegated legislative power under the Rules Enabling Act) fared in efforts to reverse or dull the effects of statutory and other incentives for …

Exceptionally Vague: Attorney Fee Shifting Under The Lanham Act, Kelsie Willett

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Awarding Attorney Fees And Deterring 'Patent Trolls', W. Keith Robinson

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

A court may award attorney fees to a prevailing party in a patent trial under exceptional circumstances. Since 2005, courts had applied a rigid formula to determine whether a case was exceptional. In the summer of 2014, the Supreme Court rejected this rigid test. Instead, the Court held that an exceptional case is “simply one that stands out from others.” Finding a case exceptional, the Court said, was at the discretion of the district court and only reviewable on appeal for an abuse of discretion.

A little over a year later, one interesting question is: how do district courts now …

Texas's Excessive Demand Doctrine Impacts Recoveries In Litigation., Stephanie M. Green

St. Mary's Law Journal

A party demanding money they are not entitled to becomes subject to the excessive demand doctrine. Because the excessive demand doctrine is an affirmative defense, a defending party must allege its claim of excessive demand in its pleadings. A party must “plead it, prove it, and obtain findings of fact on its essential elements.” To obtain findings on the issue, both the pleadings and the evidence are required to put a question or instruction before the jury. Ensuring that the evidence is enough depends upon the trial court—whose judgment will only be overturned upon a showing of an abuse of …

When Courts Determine Fees In A System With A Loser Pays Norm: Fee Award Denials To Winning Plaintiffs And Defendants, Theodore Eisenberg, Talia Fisher, Issi Rosen-Zvi

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Under the English rule, the loser pays litigation costs whereas under the American rule, each party pays its own costs. Israel instead vests in its judges full discretion to assess fees and costs as the circumstances may require. Both the English and the American rules have been the subjects of scholarly criticism. Because little empirical information exists about how either rule functions in practice, an empirical study of judicial litigation cost award practices should be of general interest. This Article presents such a study in the context of Israel’s legal system. We report evidence that Israeli judges apply their discretion …

Getting Paid In Probate Court., Robert J. Augsburger

St. Mary's Law Journal

After reviewing the Texas Probate Code, the Texas Property Code, and current case law, this Essay compiles relevant information designed to assist attorneys in obtaining payment for services provided to their clients. An attorney ad litem is an officer of the court whose “fees are assessed as costs of suit” rather than requiring the ad litem to seek “fees only from his clients’ recovered shares.” Therefore, each attorney ad litem appointed under § 34A of the Texas Probate Code is entitled to reasonable compensation for services in the amount set by the court. The attorney’s fees “must be supported by …

Civil Practice And Procedure, Andrew P. Sherrod

University of Richmond Law Review

This article surveys recent and significant developments in Virginia civil practice and procedure. Specifically, the article discusses selected opinions of the Supreme Court of Virginia from September 2011 through June 2012, addressing new or meaningful civil procedure topics; significant amendments to the Rules of the Supreme Court ofVirginia concerning procedural issues during the same period; and legislation enacted by the Virginia General Assembly during the 2012 session that relates to civil practice.

Conceptualizing Constitutional Litigation As Anti-Government Expression: A Speech-Centered Theory Of Court Access, Robert L. Tsai

Robert L Tsai

This Article proposes a speech-based right of court access. First, it finds the traditional due process approach to be analytically incoherent and of limited practical value. Second, it contends that history, constitutional structure, and theory all support conceiving of the right of access as the modern analogue to the right to petition government for redress. Third, the Article explores the ways in which the civil rights plaintiff's lawsuit tracks the behavior of the traditional dissident. Fourth, by way of a case study, the essay argues that recent restrictions - notably, a congressional limitation on the amount of fees counsel for …

The Consumer Bankruptcy Fee Study: Final Report, Lois R. Lupica

Faculty Publications

The Consumer Fee Study’s primary objective is to identify and monetize these costs of bankruptcy access through the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data gathered from court dockets and from professionals working within the bankruptcy system. We began the quantitative section with the hypothesis that following BAPCPA’s enactment, the cost of accessing the consumer bankruptcy system increased. We set out to determine the degree of increased costs, as well as to identify the specific policies and practices affecting these costs. Additionally, we endeavored to evaluate, with specificity, how diverse local procedures and guidelines impact the system’s processes and outcomes. Our …

Making Plaintiffs Whole: A Tax Problem Of Interest, William E. Foster

Oklahoma Law Review

This article illustrates the dramatic tax impact of interest awards in otherwise non-taxable litigation recoveries and proposes two alternative legislative solutions for the over-taxing of plaintiffs in these cases. While plaintiffs who recover personal injury awards typically receive favorable tax treatment, those who receive interest on such awards are taxed on the interest and often are not able to utilize deductions for attorney’s fees and other costs paid to obtain the award. Further, the attorney’s portion of the recovery in a contingency fee arrangement will be included in the plaintiff’s gross income. The result is that the plaintiff recovers less …

Overcoming Under-Compensation And Under-Deterrence In Intentional Tort Cases: Are Statutory Multiple Damages The Best Remedy?, Stephen J. Shapiro

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article advocates that states' statutes make greater and more systematic use of multiple damages by extending them to a much broader range of intentional, wrongful conduct. Part II of this Article will explain why extra-compensatory relief is called for when tortious conduct is intentional or malicious. Part III will compare punitive damages, attorney fees, and treble or other multiple damages as possible sources of additional relief. Part IV will focus on multiple damages. The Article will examine the range of existing state statutes and discuss why and how those statutes might be extended to a broader range of wrongful …

The Price Of Pay To Play In Securities Class Actions, Adam C. Pritchard, Stephen J. Choi, Drew T. Johnson-Skinner

Articles

We study the effect of campaign contributions to lead plaintiffs—“pay to play”—on the level of attorney fees in securities class actions. We find that state pension funds generally pay lower attorney fees when they serve as lead plaintiffs in securities class actions than do individual investors serving in that capacity, and larger funds negotiate for lower fees. This differential disappears, however, when we control for campaign contributions made to offcials with infuence over state pension funds. This effect is most pronounced when we focus on state pension funds that receive the largest campaign contributions and that associate repeatedly as lead …

Contingent Fees In California After Fracasse V. Brent, Brian F. Gill, George A. Mealy

Golden Gate University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Do Class Action Lawyers Make Too Little?, Brian T. Fitzpatrick

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Class action lawyers are some of the most frequently derided players in our system of civil litigation. It is often asserted that class action lawyers take too much from class judgments as fees, that class actions are little more than a device for the lawyers to enrich themselves at the expense of the class. In this Article, I argue that some of this criticism of class action lawyers is misguided. In particular, I perform a normative examination of fee percentages in class action litigation using the social-welfarist utilitarian account of litigation known as deterrence-insurance theory. I argue that in perhaps …

The Costs Of Bapcpa: Report Of The Pilot Study Of Consumer Bankruptcy Cases, Lois R. Lupica

Faculty Publications

Substantial changes were made to the consumer bankruptcy system with the enactment of BAPCPA. These changes, however, were enacted without data support for, or recognition of how such changes would affect the cost of accessing the bankruptcy system. The Costs of BAPCPA Pilot Study undertook a review of the costs of the consumer bankruptcy system following BAPCPA's enactment, to determine if costs were increased, and if so, whether these costs were passed on to the consumer. The issue of "costs" distills the question of what attorneys are charging consumers to represent them under the new regime. Thus a study of …

Attorneys’ Fees And Expenses In Class Action Settlements: 1993-2008, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

We report on a comprehensive data base of eighteen years of published opinions (1993-2008, inclusive) on settlements in class action and shareholder derivative cases in both state and federal courts. An earlier study, covering1993-2002 , revealed a remarkable relationship between attorneys’ fees and the size of class recovery: regardless of the methodology for calculating fees ostensibly employed by the courts, the overwhelmingly important determinant of the fee was simply the size of the recovery obtained by the class. The present study, which nearly doubles the number of cases in the data base, powerfully confirms that relationship. Fees display the same …

When Mira Liens Trump Attorney Fee Claims: A Harsh Result In Light Of Karpierz, Carrie B. Williamson

Missouri Law Review

The Missouri Incarceration Reimbursement Act ("MIRA") is a powerful tool which allows the State to recover incarceration costs directly from an inmate's personal assets. But what if the inmate's assets include funds obtained in some fashion by the legal services of an attorney? Could a subsequent MIRA claim take priority over that attorney's interest in being paid from the fruit of his labor? In the 2003 case of State ex reL. Nixon v. Karpierz, the Missouri Supreme Court sought to provide answers to these questions. Karpierz placed a limitation on the parameters of MIRA's reach by allowing a plaintiff inmate's …

I'Ll Huff And I'Ll Puff - But Then You'll Blow My Case Away: Dealing With Dismissed And Bad-Faith Defendants Under California's Anti-Slapp Statute, Jeremiah A. Ho

Faculty Publications

This Article will demonstrate that, despite efforts to recognize SLAPPs and to safeguard our legal process from abuses, SLAPP suits and their underlying interference with the legitimate exercise of the right to petition can often engender new ways of creeping back onto the legal stage to wreak havoc on the private citizen - that the devious, shape-shifting Big Bad Wolf of First Amendment rights can return to reprise its role as the subversive villain and to trot unsuspecting litigants out to slaughter. After an introduction into the general world of SLAPPs and the specific history behind California's section 425.16, this …

Listings, Leases, And Liabilities, Roger Bernhardt

Publications

This article discusses the California case Blickman Turkus v. MF Downtown Sunnyvale which could have been a rich source of guidance as to brokers’ commissions, disclosure duties, confidential communications, and agency, but instead focused on pleading issues.

A Proposed Revision Of California's Procedural Statutes And Rules For Seeking Prevailing-Party Attorney Fees, Charles S. Treat

Charles S Treat

California’s procedural statutes and rules governing claims for attorney fees are a mess. They create confusing and contradictory procedural requirements; they are incomplete in carrying out California’s policy of mandatory bilaterality in contractual fee provisions; and they irrationally stymie carrying out the parties’ contractual intent in some regards. This article surveys the evolution and present state of these statutes and rules, analyzes what needs fixing, and proposes amendments to fix the problems.

Attorneys Fees, Offsets And Priorities, Roger Bernhardt

Publications

This article discusses the unpredictability of determining whether the rules of offset or the rules of priorities will prevail in a situation, and goes into the question of whether attorneys’ fees will be given priority over other claims when those fees are contractual and do not relate back. The article concerns a California decision which held that a lis pendens did not give purchasers superpriority over competing liens.

Attorney Fees And Lien Priorities, Roger Bernhardt

Publications

This article examines a California decision that held that the attorneys fees of a successful purchaser in a specific performance action are subordinate to any liens the seller imposed on the property during the litigation.

The Illegality Of Contingency-Fee Arrangements When Prosecuting Public Natural Resource Damage Claims And The Need For Legislative Reform, Julie E. Steiner

Faculty Scholarship

Private attorneys are entering into contingency-fee based special counsel agreements with states, territories and tribes, to bring public natural resource damage (NRD) claims. Under this agreement, special counsel brings a NRD action on behalf of the public and fronts the litigation costs, but deducts a percentage of the public's damage recovery to pay the attorney's contingency fee; the remainder goes into a fund to be allocated by the government's NRD trustee. Because NRD claims implicate gargantuan damage awards, the legality of depleting such a damage award by a substantial percentage to pay an attorney's fee is a significant issue that …