The VLW Blog

A Richmond federal court has rejected a “simply shocking” request for nearly $1 million in attorney’s fees sought by two shareholders who sued to halt the sale of Massey Energy Company to Alpha Natural Resources Inc. U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. could not see what the plaintiffs, Benjamin Mostaed and William Perkins, had [...]

[Read more →]

Washington, D.C. lawyers who won a pro bono voter records case can’t expect to recoup fees at D.C. rates, a Norfolk federal judge said last week. Lawyers from the D.C. office of Boston-based Ropes & Gray went to bat for Project Vote, who alleged that students at Norfolk State University had problems registering to vote [...]

[Read more →]

Debra Farmer didn’t take the broad hint offered by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema during a final pretrial conference in Farmer’s Title VII suit against Navy Federal Credit Union, Farmer’s former employer. Brinkema recounted the state of the record and said she did not see how Farmer could survive summary judgment. Farmer forged ahead, and [...]

[Read more →]

A lawyer who worked to settle an employee’s comp case thought he should get a 20 percent fee, but he had to settle for 5 percent when the case settled for $100,000 after the claimant fired the lawyer. Senad Sabic won medical benefits and temporary disability benefits after his 2008 work-related injury, but he hired [...]

[Read more →]

A bankruptcy court can be its own authority on the prevailing pay rate for a winning lawyer, according to a new opinion from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In awarding $279,090 in fees after upholding the lien priority of Tysons Financial LLC in an adversary proceeding, the bankruptcy court said it could “almost [...]

[Read more →]

Court-appointed lawyers could face disappointment on fees for some cases next month. The money for fee cap waivers is running out again. The budget for the fiscal year that ends in June included $4.2 million for extra pay for court-appointed lawyers in time-consuming cases. The Supreme Court had processed $3.7 million for waiver payments as [...]

[Read more →]

Good lawyers know sometimes it only takes the right letter to the right person to win a client’s case. The Workers’ Compensation Commission recognized as much last week when it boosted the attorney’s fee for a claimant’s lawyer. Richmond lawyer Robert L. Flax recovered a total benefit of $33,125 for the claimant, with $11,433 paid [...]

[Read more →]

Yesterday a Harrisonburg U.S. District Court approved a $9.95 million settlement in a consumer protection class action against Bank of America under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. U.S. District Court Samuel G. Wilson also approved over $1.8 million in attorney’s fees and costs to the attorneys for the plaintiff class, led by Newport News lawyer [...]

[Read more →]

Doctors who seek to avoid med-mal liability by petitioning to get a case before Virginia’s birth-injury compensation program can’t collect legal fees from the program. In a Nov. 22 decision in In re: Subham Patel, the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission reversed fee awards to lawyers for a physician and her practice group, and lawyers for [...]

[Read more →]

U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Urbanski recommends limiting attorneys’ fee to 33 1/3 percent for child and wrongful death claims arising from the Salmonella outbreak from products made by the Lynchburg-based Peanut Corporation of America. A report and recommendation issued by Urbanski on Wednesday recommends approval of $12 million in settlements from a fund established to [...]

[Read more →]