$300 million attorney’s fees awards are not common. Even in Madison County. But now the Delaware Supreme Court has approved Chancellor Strine’s award of $ 300 million of fees in a contingent fee case related to a massive fraudulent conveyance case (Grupo Mexico and Southern Copper) that resulted in a $ 2 billion verdict. The opinion is here; a prior post asks if the award makes Delaware a judicial hellhole. So far, I’ve not heard that said, publicly.
Judge Strine’s view? According to his opinion:
"[T]here’s an idea that when a lawyer or law firms are going to get a big payment, that there’s something somehow wrong about that, just because it’s a lawyer. I’m sorry, but investment banks have hit it big, a lot of the bigger plaintiffs’ lawyer firms have hit it big. They’ve hit it big many times. And to me, envy is not an appropriate motivation to take into account when you set an attorney fee. It’s not."
Supreme Court Justice Berger was not impressed by his reasoning, and so dissented.
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