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