When the New York Common Fund and CalSTRS won a record-setting $3.2 billion settlement in 1999 from the Cendant Corp. it included $262 million for the lawyers, including those from two lead plaintiff counsel firms, Bernstein Litowitz & Grossman, and Barrack, Rodos and Bacine.
But a young lawyer with the city of New York was upset by the settlement, which worked out to an hourly rate of $10,861 per hour. She asked the court to re-examine the work of the lawyers. The battle that ensued ended up in federal appeals court and ultimately resulted in the $262 million in fees being reduced to $55 million in 2002.
If ever there was a little guy who deserved help from the New York attorney, that young New York lawyer was it. But Eliot Spitzer never said a word about the case. And New York campaign finance records show that he received nearly $100,000 in campaign contributions from the two firms who were lead plaintiffs counsel.
