Legal News

Neuborne Holocaust-Suit Fee Flap Again Rears Its Ugly Head

By Peter Lattman

Loyal Law Blog readers will remember the controversy surrounding Burt Neuborne, the NYU law professor who was awarded $3.1 million by a federal judge for his work administering a $1.25 billion settlement between Swiss banks and Holocaust survivors. A number of Holocaust survivors and lawyers thought he asked for too much money for what should’ve been pro bono work; Neuborne, and Judge Frederic Block, felt the award was justified. (Neuborne had also received a $4.4 million fee in an earlier Holocaust lawsuit.)

Neuborne’s back in court asking for $299,419 in interest to cover the two years during which his fee was delayed by objections from the survivors. If approved, the interest would be paid out of the survivors’ settlement fund. Here’s the NY Sun story, and Law Blog background on the fee flap.

Said a leading protestor of Neuborne’s initial fee request, David Mermelstein from a suburb of Miami, Fla., said: “Shocking is not the word for it. Disgusting is not the word for it. Chutzpah is too nice a word to say about the thing. After getting $3 million, to have the guts to ask for interest?” Another survivor, Leo Rechter of Queens, told the Sun: “He’s setting a precedent on greed.”

Neuborne told the Sun requesting interest is a standard practice. “I can’t understand them,” Neuborne said of his critics. “Does Leo Rechter not understand the concept of interest?” He added: “They’ve succeeded in painting me as a greedy lawyer, when, in fact, my years of service and the restraint I’ve used in billing doesn’t deserve that kind of criticism. But the response I get is that if I ask for interest, I’m poking my finger in their eye.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 28, 2008 (boomark / email).