Event Detail
2010 Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Workshop: "The Regulation of Attorneys' Fees in Aggregate Litigation"
This one-day invitation-only workshop organized by Professors Richard Nagareda and Brian Fitzpatrick will bring together a group of academicians and practitioners to discuss three major questions:
- Who should regulate attorneys’ fees in class actions? Under current law, trial-level judges determine what portion of class action settlements will be awarded to class counsel in the form of fees. In so doing, trial-level judges exercise considerable discretion, awarding fees over a broad range. A significant portion of all wealth transferred in our civil litigation system stems from a relatively small number of class action settlements every year. Does decentralized, judicial decisionmaking form the best institutional model for setting class counsel fees? Or, for example, should fees be more heavily regulated by the political branches of government?
- How much should class action lawyers make? In the federal system, district judges currently award fees to class counsel over a broad range, with counsel currently garnering roughly 15% of all settlement proceeds and with the median award around 30%. Is there a theoretical basis for fee awards at these levels? Are such fee awards optimal in light of the purposes of class action litigation and, if not, what would optimal fees look like.
- How should fees be regulated in inventory settlements? Lawyers traditionally negotiate fees with clients in individual litigation, subject only to the constraints of ethics rules promulgated by state bars. Recently, however, some courts have analogized individual litigation inventoried for purposes of settlement to class actions and have begun to regulate accordingly the fees in such settlements. Should individual litigation inventoried for settlement be treated differently than class actions with regard to the institutional and optimal-fee-level questions raised previously?
To date, participants include:
- Lynn Baker, University of Texas-Austin
- Elizabeth Cabraser, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, San Francisco
- Judge Eldon Fallon, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana
- Myriam Gilles, Cardozo School of Law
- Samuel Issacharoff, NYU School of Law
- Geoffrey Miller, NYU School of Law
- Judge Carolyn Kuhl, California Superior Court, Los Angeles
| Date/Time | Occurrence Details |
|---|---|
| Date: Feb 05, 2010 Time: 08:15 AM to 04:30 PM Details: | Vanderbilt Law School |
