Two unlikely allies are pairing up in an attorney fee case currently before the Supreme Court. The conservative Liberty Legal Institute in Texas and the liberal American Civil Liberties Union have filed amicus briefs supporting Children’s Rights Inc. and their law firm over fees awarded in case involving neglect in Georgia’s foster care system. More than two dozen other law firms and bar association have joined the effort supporting Children’s Rights Inc.
Nevada lawmakers on Monday passed legislation that aims to do away with a $350,000 cap on non-economic medical malpractice damages. Under the bill, plaintiffs could recover unlimited damages in instances of gross negligence. Support for the issue gained momentum following a widespread Hepatitis C scare last year
A federal judge has approved a settlement in a class-action lawsuit that sought to force Horizon Blue Cross of New Jersey to augment coverage for about 1.5 million eating disorder patients. Under the settlement, the insurer agreed to abandon restrictions that limited outpatient treatment and hospitalization coverage for policyholders with anorexia and bulimia. The settlement includes up to $2.45 million in attorneys fees.
Two attorneys convicted of defrauding clients involved in a fen-phen diet drug case must forfeit $30 million, a federal jury ruled Tuesday. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorneys Office said the money will be used to reimburse clients affected by the fraud. Attorneys William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham bilked about 440 clients out of $94.6 million, according to prosecutors.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could set an expansive precedent for judges to award increased attorneys fees. The case stems from a decision by U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob to award an additional $4.5 million in fees to attorneys involved in a lawsuit against Georgia’s foster care system. Shoob reasoned that the increased fees were reasonable because the lawsuit ultimately benefited the public. The case is Perdue v. Kenny A.
Up until last month, there didn’t seem to be a TV camera that attorney Debra Opri wouldn’t embrace.
The brash, self-professed blue-collar gal from New Jersey had secured a costarring role in the Anna Nicole Smith media circus as the attorney waging war to prove that Larry Birkhead was in fact the father of the now-deceased Playboy bombshell’s baby girl.
Her hair long, dark and stick-straight, the 47-year-old hovered perennially at Birkhead’s side, always ready to hit the Larry King-Bill O’Reilly talk-show circuit on his behalf, always filled with snappy quotes for reporters. Before Smith died, Opri routinely chastised the buxom blond from myriad courthouse steps. "Where’s this woman’s decency? Where’s her fairness?" a righteous Opri asked.
Now, her former star client is asking the same question about Opri.
In March the two acrimoniously parted ways, and in June, Birkhead sued her for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and legal malpractice. He also filed a complaint with the California Bar Assn., which is investigating. Two weeks ago, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles C. Lee gave Birkhead his first victory in what is expected to be a long skirmish — granting his request that $591,250 of Birkhead’s money Opri had sequestered in her attorney-client trust account be transferred into a separate blocked account, that could be touched only by court order.
While it’s unclear how the case will end, Birkhead’s allegations have the potential to seriously dent Opri’s once-promising career as the next Greta Van Susteren or Nancy Grace, one of those tough-talking, camera-ready legal eagles on call to opine about the day’s courthouse skirmish. To journalist and author Diane Dimond, who first noticed Opri at the second Michael Jackson trial, Opri was at the vanguard of a "disturbing trend of attorneys that began to show up at high-profile trials like Scott Peterson, Robert Blake and Michael Jackson." Lawyers, Dimond explains, who essentially show up for the cameras to "get face time." With law and celebrity increasingly intertwined in a tabloid and 24-hour-news-dominated culture, the matter of Birkhead vs. Opri is more than just a nasty spat. It’s also a revealing excursion into a high-stakes world where punditry and legal representation can collide and where six-figure deals between newsmakers and the media are part of the game.
Opri got her start in this rarefied corner of the law by working for the late singer James Brown and then the parents of Michael Jackson. She made a splash giving interviews during Jackson’s molestation trial. Her career, her detractors say, is a vivid case study of how lawyers can push their way into the media circus and sometimes profit from their exertions.
Birkhead’s claims raise questions of whether she ran roughshod over her client’s interest in a quest to rack up airtime and legal bills. His suit isn’t her only problem. Opri represented actress Pamela Bach in her legal faceoff in court against her erstwhile husband, "Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff. Last month, Bach fired Opri after she lost full custody of her two daughters.
Meanwhile, Hasselhoff’s lawyers have filed a motion in Superior Court to get her financial records to determine the exact sum — believed by his lawyers to be hundreds of thousands of dollars — that Bach and/or Opri allegedly received in connection with the sale to the media of the infamous video of a drunken Hasselhoff. Opri denies having anything to do with the video.
She also adamantly disputes Birkhead’s accusations and has brought on Sitrick and Co., the crisis P.R. firm, to help her quell the stirring controversy.
She believes that Birkhead was behind the leaking of her legal bill to him, which totaled $620,492, and included items such as a lobster barbecue, thousand of dollars’ worth of limo rides and $1,500 a month for her publicist. According to her legal bill placed in the court file, she routinely charged Birkhead about $119 per e-mail, not to mention the over $96,000 she billed him for her time on cellphone calls.
"The bill in and of itself is not outrageous," she said. "This is a bill he doesn’t want to pay on any level. I never agreed to work pro bono. I don’t work for free," she said repeatedly, responding to one of Birkhead’s claims. "I just don’t. I can’t afford it."
His side of the story
FOR his part, Birkhead said he’s paid the Florida and Bahamian attorneys who worked on his case. "Their fees were reasonable. I was not supposed to be charged by [Opri], and she took money she wasn’t supposed to take," said the photographer in an interview last week in the Valley, accompanied by his lawyer, M.L. Trope. Birkhead characterizes his relationship with Opri as a bad marriage that he’s had trouble shaking.
Over lunch, Birkhead outlined and detailed many of the allegations made in his court papers, which include three long sworn affidavits from him. Opri disputes almost everything Birkhead claims, but her court affidavit is a one-page document that merely states that he signed a legal retainer with her.
Birkhead said he first heard about Opri when MSNBC reporter Rita Cosby tracked him down in 2006 in a New York hotel room to try to get an interview. Birkhead said he didn’t know Cosby, but as his legal complaint lays out, he claims the reporter told him she knew an attorney — Opri — who wanted his case and would do it for free. In an interview, Cosby, who’s had Opri on her show numerous times, said it was Birkhead who solicited her advice about legal representation, and so she mentioned Opri among several names. She had no idea of the financial arrangement between the duo.
According to Birkhead, he’d been contacted by a number of attorneys offering their services pro bono; he’d interviewed others who’d asked for retainers ranging from $40,000 to $100,000. Yet none played on his emotions the way Opri did. Smith was planning to marry attorney Howard K. Stern, and Birkhead says Opri told him he was in danger of losing his child if he didn’t sign up with her immediately. Opri denies saying any such thing.
That night, he appeared on Van Susteren’s show and off camera asked the anchor her opinion of Opri. "He said that Opri was going to charge him nothing because she was going to get a lot of publicity out of it equal to her fee," Van Susteren recalled. "I said, ‘You can’t beat that.’ "
Birkhead flew back to his home in California the next day; by the time his flight was taxiing to the gate, Birkhead said that Opri had called him multiple times. She offered to send a limo for him, but he declined. When he arrived at her office, "she’s walking around like a maniac. She’s pacing," recalled Birkhead, who asked her if family law was her expertise. She told him she had years of experience.
According to Birkhead, she then proceeded to "take these papers, and like a deck of cards, she flings them on the desk." She rattled off what they were: a paternity action, a suit against Stern, another against Smith for palimony. Birkhead, who’d lived with Smith, didn’t want to file a palimony claim. She threw in a media agreement that entitled her to 10% of any of his earnings if he sold his story. He told her he wouldn’t write a book or do "anything sleazy." According to Birkhead, she told him that he was going to be rich and that she’d already lined up agents for him.
When a truck wouldn’t run after the mechanic at the auto dealer cleaned the vehicle’s fuel injectors the dealer balked at fixing the engine, and the owner called his lawyer.
The lawyer helped him prepare documents for his small-claims court case and advised him on what to wear and say in court. The advice paid off for the truck owner won and recovered the cost of a replacement engine.
His legal tab? Zero — or $13 a month, depending on how you look at it.
To wage the small-claims fight, the individual tapped into prepaid legal services that his employer offers as an employee benefit, like life insurance or dental care.
A monthly payroll deductions gives all employees access to a roster of lawyers affiliated with a firm which handle most matters at no additional charge, a phenomenal bargain considering that experienced lawyers often charge $250 to $700 or more an hour.
Having an affordable legal team on call gives everyone peace of mind.
An estimated 90 million people in the U.S. work for companies or are members of unions that offer the type of legal benefit to the American Prepaid Legal Services Institute, a Chicago-based trade group affiliated with the American Bar Assn.
Sometimes called legal insurance, group legal services provide the average person a family lawyer like you used to have a family doctor; a person to take care of things the family needs, so they don’t have problems later.
Americans were introduced to prepaid legal services, imported from Europe in the 1970s, when they were included as benefits in labor union contracts. The popularity of legal plans has grown. Last year, 27% of 9,000 employers surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) offered them, up from 22% six years ago.
Individuals can buy into prepaid plans on their own, but the majority of people sign up through the workplace. Enrollment is voluntary, and in most cases employees pay monthly dues ranging from $9 to $25, with the employer usually contributing nothing. Under some union contracts, the employer foots the entire bill.
Legal plans function as health maintenance organizations do, pooling the risk of costly litigation on the bet that participating lawyers can help most clients over the phone or with a few hours’ work. People usually tap into the plans for help with "everyday legal life events" such as buying or selling a home, estate planning, adoption or changing a name. Although the services vary by plan, people enrolled through their employers generally can get help with divorces, credit problems, identity theft, immigration difficulties and tax audits.
For time-consuming or complex matters — such as when an uncontested divorce escalates into a "Kramer vs. Kramer" situation — clients may be charged additional fees but usually at a discounted rate. It all depends on the fine print in the contract.
Many plans cover misdemeanor offenses, such as traffic tickets. But don’t look to lawyers in your plan to keep you out of prison: Most don’t handle felonies. Most plans also exclude fee-generating cases such as class-action and personal-injury lawsuits.
Oh, and forget about enlisting your employer-sponsored lawyer to sue your boss.
Prepaid legal plans are a bad deal only if you never use them.
How do you know you can trust the lawyers in your plan? They apply to be listed on plan rosters, and providers regularly audit the practitioners they accept. Client complaints can trigger more frequent audits of a particular attorney or his or her removal from the roster.
Some lawyers get all of their clients through referrals from prepaid plans, listing themselves with as many as six providers. But most plan attorneys represent other clients as well.
According to Justice Roberts, in 1969,federal judges earned substantially more than the dean and the senior professors at
During the same period, the average
Federal judges, who have lifetime appointments, "do not expect to receive salaries commensurate with what they could easily earn in the private sector," Roberts acknowledged that judges in many cities know that lawyers fresh out of law school will earn more than they do.
Roberts did not indicate how much he thought judges should be paid.
The chief justice, who heads the federal judicial system, faces an uphill fight in persuading Congress to boost the salaries of judges. That’s because in the last 20 years, the pay rates for judges have been tied to those of members of Congress.
In 2006, senators, representatives and federal district judges were paid $165,200. That was $3,100 more than in 2005.
Judges on the
The Democratic takeover of Congress may work to the advantage of the judiciary, however.
Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of
About The Author:
Attorney Ted Bills can be reached at 719.444.1000 or at http://www.SpringsAttorney.com.
Attorney Ted Bills has one mission – to fight for the rights of victims, the wrong accused, and those who have been devastated by the misconduct of others – he represents clients with an aggressive approach designed to provide SWIFT justice.
Attorney Ted Bills practices Auto Accident (Car, Truck, and Motorcycle crash), DUI, Personal Injury, and Criminal – Traffic Violation law in
Nothing on this site constitutes an attorney-client relationship nor does it constitute legal advice. Links are for informational purposes and do not represent endorsement by Attorney Ted Bills.
No other major urban county in
There is no charge for an electronic search of civil lawsuits filed in
Although the public pays, lawyers and law firms among the 22,000 members of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. can get free access to the civil case information.
Even so, the fee charged by the
The second-largest state court in the nation —
And it is possible to do an online search of a master index of cases filed in most federal district, bankruptcy, and appellate courts across the country for eight cents a page. To view and print a document filed in federal court also costs eight cents a page.
About The Author:
Attorney Ted Bills can be reached at 719.444.1000 or at http://www.SpringsAttorney.com.
Attorney Ted Bills has one mission – to fight for the rights of victims, the wrong accused, and those who have been devastated by the misconduct of others – he represents clients with an aggressive approach designed to provide SWIFT justice.
Attorney Ted Bills practices Auto Accident (Car, Truck, and Motorcycle crash), DUI, Personal Injury, and Criminal – Traffic Violation law in
Nothing on this site constitutes an attorney-client relationship nor does it constitute legal advice. Links are for informational purposes and do not represent endorsement by Attorney Ted Bills.
A former police officer who was paralyzed in an all-terrain vehicle accident while taking a shortcut on a Fire Island beach (NY) as his shift ended has been awarded a $14.8-million cash settlement.
The police officer struck a metal stake while navigating a narrow path known as "Coast Guard Cut" after his first day of patrol on the ATV. The collision with the stake — placed there to support snow fences — caused the vehicle to flip and land on him, according to court documents.
He suffered spinal injuries in the 2002 accident and has been dependent on a wheelchair since then.
The state argued that it was not liable for obstructions on the narrow, unofficial pathway. Also, it said police officer and his partner, who accompanied him on a separate ATV, had no right to use the path on their patrol.
The Attorney for the police officer countered that the path was known to many agencies that used it informally, and the state bore the responsibility of keeping it safe or at least of posting warning signs that hazards could exist.
The Attorney for the police officer said his client, who has a wife and three children, has been tirelessly upbeat as the case dragged on for four years.
After paying about $4.8 million in legal fees, the police officer will be left with about $10 million. Seven million will be awarded immediately and the rest will be disbursed in monthly payments.
About The Author:
Attorney Ted Bills can be reached at 719.444.1000 or at http://www.SpringsAttorney.com.
Attorney Ted Bills has one mission – to fight for the rights of victims, the wrong accused, and those who have been devastated by the misconduct of others – he represents clients with an aggressive approach designed to provide SWIFT justice.
Attorney Ted Bills practices Auto Accident (Car, Truck, and Motorcycle crash), DUI, Personal Injury, and Criminal – Traffic Violation law in
Nothing on this site constitutes an attorney-client relationship nor does it constitute legal advice. Links are for informational purposes and do not represent endorsement by Attorney Ted Bills.
