Since criminal defense lawyers go to trial far more frequently than civil lawyers who call themselves litigators (“I’m an expert at depositions”), what’s a reasonable price for a trial? Well, try this one on for size.
Per the WSJ Blog, a fee request from Biglaw firm Allen & Overy.
One case. Two associates. 15 months. 4,540 billable hours.
Legal fee? $10.32 Million. The trial lasted 5 days. I would tell you how much per trial day that is, but my pencil point keeps breaking every time I try to do the math.
According to the judge, this was a garden-variety patent case, in which approximately 9 man/years was spent over 15 months, culminating in the 5 day trial.
Let me be frank about this. I think this is an eminently reasonable fee, and I want a fee just like this one. I will give you the best 5 day trial you’ve ever seen. In fact, we’ll round it off to $10 million even, and you can take the rest and buy Starbucks coffee for a few of your favorite assistants.
But what do the Wall Street Journal’s readers think of this fee? They think it’s reasonable too.
Confidential to criminal defense lawyers: What are we doing wrong?
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I know what you’re doing wrong. You’re representing regular people who don’t have a lot of money.
Besides corporations have a lot more money than they do common sense.
Even when I represent white collar defendants, top level corporate executives, they complain about the fees just as much as anyone else. Mind you, they want everything in the world, soup to nuts, bells and whistles, with no stone unturned. They just don’t like paying for it.