Lehman Bankruptcy Nets Record Fees for Lawyers

Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy filing is a gold mine for lawyers. One New York firm asked a bankruptcy judge this week to authorize a $55 million payment—the largest quarterly fee ever for a bankruptcy case, the Wall Street Journal reports. When all is said and done, this firm alone—Weil, Gotshal & Manges—is likely to rake in $200 million, another record for debtor counseling.

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The firm says it worked more than 100,000 billable hours from September to January; that includes 795 hours by the lead lawyer, who makes just shy of $1,000 for each one. Also included: $200,000 for business meals and $287,000 to make copies of all those pages. A dozen other firms also are on the case and have so far billed $27 million. The grand total of court-approved fees is likely to be about $900 million, an expert tells the Journal.
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