While attorney fees in other areas of legal practice are often much lower than $1,000 an hour, the world of big-ticket bankruptcy court has developed into a particularly lucrative practice for top law firms. Gymnastics bankruptcy litigation filed for fees at or above $1,000 an hour. Lynn LoPucki, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who monitors big bankruptcy cases, said the legal fees in the Boy Scouts bankruptcy and similar cases appear to be excessive. Mr. LoPucki said that many big bankruptcy cases in recent years have seen escalating fees for lawyers, though he said he had never seen a lawyer bill for $1,725 an hour — as one lawyer has requested from the court in the Boy Scouts case. “Businesses that are actually paying their own fees are not paying as high as they are in the bankruptcy cases,” Mr. LoPucki said.

Source: New York Times May 11, 2021 15:49 UTC