Poor Milberg.
The class action law firm which represents slighted consumers and shareholders in their battles against those mean corporations is getting knocked around these days like a red-headed stepchild.
A few years ago an earlier incarnation of the firm was indicted for its alleged role in a decades-long conspiracy pursuant to which serial plaintiffs were paid kickbacks from court-approved attorneys' fees in the cases. Several former partners were sent to prison, and the firm avoided prosecution after paying a $75 million fine.
The surviving firm slogged on to face other controversies last year.
U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson Jr. sanctioned the firm and its co-counsel pursuant to Rule 11 with a public reprimand after allegations from two "confidential sources" in a lawsuit against Sony Corporation subsequently were not supported by the witnesses' deposition testimony, and U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman rebuked the firm in a ruling on its request for additional attorneys' fees a lawsuit against Nortel Networks Corp. because of, among other issues, improper staffing.
And now Milberg is being sued by fellow class action law firm Whatley Drake & Kallas over the amount of attorneys' fees it collected from settlements in litigation involving reimbursements by HMOs to health care providers as reported by Iulia Filip for Courthouse News Service. The two firms served as co-counsel in the litigation but Whatley Drake & Kallas alleges the Milberg law firm collected nearly $8 million in undeserved attorneys' fees in breach of their fee sharing agreement since it "ceased working on any of the matters in the wake of its indictment in May of 2006."
Et tu, Brute?
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