Given the fact that a good portion of these attorney fees will go so that Kirkland and Ellis can figure out the best way to cut pay under labor contracts, and in fact to force the busting of the U.A. unions, one can only wonder at the way the bankruptcy system transfers money from workers, to among others, law firms. In fact, the amusing thing is that a detailed look at the fee petition will reveal how much time the law firm expended finding ways to takeback wages and benefits from workers... Jerry Monaco
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/03/08/how-to-politely-ask-for-99-million-ask-kirkland-ellis/ March 8, 2006, 3:35 pm
How To Politely Ask for $99 Million? Ask Kirkland & Ellis Posted by Peter Lattman
On Monday Chicago law firm Kirkland & Ellis filed its final fee application for its three years of toiling away on the United Airlines bankruptcy matter. The final tally: a discount-store worthy $99,807,894.10 in fees and expenses ($93.7 million in fees; $6.1 million in expenses).
Click here <http://online.wsj.com/documents/WSJ_KE-FeeApplication.pdf> to peruse the 88-page fee application, which contains some interesting (and not-so interesting) details:
- The Iron Horse Gold Medal: Partner David Seligman billed 10,231
hours on the matter, generating roughly $5.5 million in fees. By the Law
Blog's fuzzy math, that means Seligman worked roughly 9 hours per day, 7
days per week for the duration of the three-year bankruptcy.
- The Iron Horse Silver Medal: Associate Jeffrey Gettleman billed
9,968 hours on the matter, generating about $3.1 million in fees.
- The Iron Horse Bronze Medal: Paralegal Gary Vogt billed over 6,300
hours on the matter, generating about $1.4 million in fees.
- The Rob "Makin' Copies" Schneider Award: the entire team. K&E
tallied over $3.6 million in copying expenses.
- The I'm-a-Really-Really-Expensive-Lawyer Award: Lead partner Jamie
Sprayregen billed over 4,000 hours on the case, charging roughly $3.45
million, which works out to a handsome $780 per hour.
When we posted<http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2006/01/23/the-ual-bankruptcy-bad-for-baggage-handlers-good-for-lawyers/>on the K&E's princely fees last month, we noted that a Chicago Sun-Times article had quoted University of Chicago law professor Douglas Baird defending the fees. While Baird conceded that it was probably unfair "that Jamie Sprayregen gets paid $700 an hour, while the poor flight attendants are really taking it on the chin, that's the result of living in a market economy."
-- Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog is Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and Culture http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
His fiction, poetry, weblog is Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
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