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Plaintiffs' lawyers in O'Bannon case seeking $50.2 million [National Iraqi News Agency (Iraq)](National Iraqi News Agency (Iraq) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Ed O'Bannon class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA are seeking more than $50.2 million in attorneys' fees and other costs from the association, according to a revised billing filing they made late Tuesday night. The documents come about 2½ months after U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled that the NCAA's limits on what major-college football and men's basketball players can receive for playing sports unreasonably restrain trade in violation of antitrust laws. The case did not include a financial damages component, but Wilken also ruled that the plaintiffs shall recover their costs from the NCAA. In Tuesday night's filing, the plaintiffs – led by Michael Hausfeld's firm, Hausfeld LLP – wrote that they are seeking attorneys' fees of $44,972,407 and recoverable costs and expenses of $5,277,209. They also asked Wilken to consider an upward adjustment of the final amount awarded because the case carried an exceptional risk of defeat and required a tremendous amount of time and labor that in turn precluded other employment. The NCAA has appealed the ruling and the accompanying injunction to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, keeping the case in motion after more than five years and a three-week trial before Wilken this past June. In August, the plaintiffs' lawyers submitted an initial request for fees and costs that totaled more than $52.4 million -- nearly $46.9 million in attorneys' fees and more than $5.5 million in recoverable costs. That filing that was made in order to comply with local court rules requiring attorneys' billing submissions to be made within 14 days of a judgment. In the days prior to the deadline, though, filings by both sides indicated that they felt more time was needed for the plaintiffs' lawyers to compile their motion for fees and costs. But Wilken took no action to extend the filing period, so the plaintiffs' lawyers had to make a submission by the two-week deadline or risk losing some, or all, of their fee- and cost-recovery rights. The plaintiffs' lawyers did, however, write that they reserved all rights to amend their motion and documentation because they had not yet had sufficient time to audit these submissions thoroughly and separate attorneys' time related to work that should be covered instead under settlements that were made earlier in the case with video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA) and Collegiate Licensing Co. (CLC), the nation's leading collegiate trademark licensing and marketing firm. In early September, Wilken signed an order that gave the plaintiffs' lawyers until Tuesday to file an amended version of their request. In the Tuesday night filing, the plaintiffs' lawyers wrote that their amended filing does not include attorney time and expenses associated with the mediation and settlement of claims against EA and CLC or any subsequent related work, which is more appropriately the subject of a future fees motion attendant to those proceedings. They also wrote that Wilken's ruling came after the case involved 10 motions to dismiss, 76 depositions, a slew of early appeal attempts by the NCAA, numerous pre-trial motions by the NCAA to stave off trial and then the trial itself. The complexities of, and risks associated with, this litigation defy comparison to most other contingent antitrust matters in recent history, they wrote. Hausfeld's firm oversaw the work of 31 law firms in the case, according to the filing, which benchmarked that collective against the NCAA's legal team, as well as the hundreds of attorneys across the country representing schools, conferences, EA, CLC and other third parties to the litigation such as television companies. (The initial version of the fees-and-costs motion in August said Hausfeld's firm oversaw the work of 43 firms.) The NCAA will have until Dec. 23 to file a response. In August, as the plaintiffs' lawyers sought more time to compile their fees and costs, the NCAA sought commensurate time to review and analyze the plaintiffs' records. The NCAA also argued that the plaintiffs' lawyers will be able to seek costs and fees only for what it termed the limited legal claims on which Wilken ruled in the plaintiffs' favor. The plaintiffs' lawyers began working against those arguments in Tuesday night's filing and added some preemptive arguments as well. The NCAA will undoubtedly contend that the number of hours expended here suggests inefficiency -- yet, over the course of five years, its counsel threw up roadblocks to Plaintiffs at every opportunity ... In opting for scorched-earth litigation, they wrote, the NCAA was well aware of the consequences for any fee petition in the event that it did not prevail. Tuesday night's revised filing said the lawyers' fees were being billed across a range of rates, from $985 per hour for senior partners with more than 40 years' experience to $175 per hour for the most junior lawyers. The filing also gave a few insights into some of the NCAA's costs, noting that the association paid one of its trial witnesses $2,300 per hour. Plaintiffs' expense records that were part of the filing show that from November 2012 through the trial in June 2014, they made payments to their star economics expert, Stanford professor emeritus Roger Noll, that totaled $380,000. Noll prepared a series of reports, appeared for depositions and was a trial witness. For work done from March 2009 through the end of July 2014, Hausfeld's firm alone is seeking fees for more than 27,300 hours at a total of nearly $15.6 million, according to the filing. (That's about 2,000 hours and $1.5 million less than in the original submission in August). Hausfeld himself is seeking to bill about $970 per hour for nearly 2,800 hours -- a total of nearly $2.7 million. All rights are reserved for National Iraqi News Agency / NINA (c) 2014 Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |