Georgia Judge Was a Hard Working Lawyer, Maybe Too Hard Working

Gwinnet County, Georgian Judge Rodney Harris was a hard working public defender. Records he submitted for payment indicate that he could work and bill 24-hours a day. Now I know we've seen lawyers "value-billing" for 24-hour workdays, but actually working all around the clock--that's a trick. I have a feeling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation into Judge Harris' billing practices prior to the time he took the bench have just cost his Honor a little heartburn. We shall see. Here's an excerpt from reporter Andria Simmons' story:

"Working more than 24 hours in a single day is an impossible feat. But an internal audit released Thursday found that a  Gwinnett Recorder's Court judge billed the county for just such a thing three times while he was a court-appointed indigent defense attorney.   Rodney Harris also would have had to work between 60 and 70 hours a week with no break to have rightfully earned the $1.1 million for which he billed the county between 2005 and 2010, the audit found.

Harris said Thursday 'At this point I don't have any comments to make.' He said he would make a statement in the future."
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Well, at least there is one Georgian who knows how to shut his mouth, when mouth-shutting is called for.

Over-Lawyered? Probably

This comes by way of AboveTheLaw.com which links to MassLawyersWeekly.com report on the decision in the Matter of Bartley J. King, a probate estate worth $1.2 million dollars.  The law firm handling the matter billed $800,000! Yikes!  The Masschusetts Supremee Judicial Court thinks, that just maybe, the matter was overbilled and overlawyered.  This is from the MassLawyers Blawg post:

K&L Gates, which charged a client $800,000 to defend a probate estate of $1.2 million, has been accused of  'unnecessary overlawyering' by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.


In a ruling in In the Matter of the Estate of Bartley J. King, released today, Justice Margot Botsford wrote for a unanimous court that 'a total of eighteen attorneys and paralegals were representing [the client], a remarkable number especially when one takes into account the motion judge’s view that the theories advanced by the contestants were not ‘overly complex.’ 'Even a cursory review of the billing records suggests that among all these attorneys there was duplication of effort,' the judge added, citing the fact that 'a fair amount of billing for the time of two or more attorneys who were attending the same hearing.' The SJC sent the case back to the Probate & Family Court to reconsider the fee award.

Stephen G. Howard, who led K&L Gates’ work in the case, had racked up the fees fending off attacks on the will of a 91-year-old who bequeathed the entirety of his $1.2 million estate to one of his daughters. Left out, his two other children and nine of his grandchildren contested the will, but when the case went to trial in 2007, the daughter, Lois A. Folan, won on all counts.

Afterward, Howard asked to be paid $710,322 in legal fees and $95,868 in costs. Lawyers for the other families balked, and a Probate & Family Court judge eventually forged a compromise, awarded $574,322 in fees. Boston lawyer Thomas F. Maffei, of Griesinger, Tighe & Maffei in Boston, then appealed that award to the SJC.  Citing the size of the fees, the SJC remanded the case to the Probate & Family Court to hear evidence on whether they should be awarded.

'[A]t least some of the pretrial litigation activity … reasonably could be seen as unnecessary overlawyering in a case such as this, where the decedent’s entire estate was worth $1.2 million, and where on more than one occasion before trial, the trial judge made clear that she thought a trial would be necessary because of unresolved factual issues,' Botsford wrote.  Maffei called the decision a 'wake-up call.'  'When it comes to legal fees, reasonableness is still the test,' he tells Lawyers Weekly. 'Not every litigation is a ‘bet-the-company case.’"
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We talk about bad lawyers all the time, but this case highlights something I've said on Bad Lawyer since the outset, the real thieves get away with it all the time.  Their law firms have marbled foyers, antique furniture, and silver service.  Rarely are they caught out in full rapaciousness, as attorney Howard and K & L Gates--by the way, check their website.  Apparently these Massachusetts Judges didn't get an invite to the last firm soiree, oops.  

Here's betting, the attempted ransack of this estate by K & L Gates results in no disciplinary action.