The fate of a $185 million payday for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan was in a judge's hands on Thursday, after the law firm squared off in a Washington, D.C. courtroom with a group of health insurers who claim it received an undeserved windfall.
The same judge — Kathryn Davis of U.S. Federal Claims Court — awarded the fees after Quinn Emanuel secured a $3.7 billion judgment in 2020 for a class of insurers that said the Obama administration failed to meet its obligations under an Obamacare provision aimed at encouraging medical coverage to uninsured Americans.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit struck down the fee award last year, calling the amount "extraordinarily high" and directing Davis to reassess it.
Quinn Emanuel's Adam Wolfson told the judge at Thursday's hearing that the firm's $185 million fee, which amounted to 5% of the $3.7 billion judgment, represented the "rock bottom" compared with what courts have awarded in other cases.
The insurers that challenged the award, including UnitedHealthcare (UNH.N) and Kaiser, have called the size of the fee "astronomical." A lawyer for the insurers, Moe Keshavarzi of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, urged Davis on Thursday to approve an award no larger than about $11 million to $23 million.
UnitedHealthcare and Kaiser said in court papers that the $185 million fee translates to more than $18,000 an hour for Quinn Emanuel. Top partners at the 900-lawyer firm often bill between $1,500 and $2,000 an hour, court records show.
Spokespeople for Quinn Emanuel, UnitedHealthcare and Kaiser did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Quinn Emanuel has defended the award as appropriate for the "substantial risk" it took on and 10,000 hours it expended on the case.
The insurers have countered that Quinn Emanuel used “inflated and unproven hours” to justify its initial fee request.
“10,000 hours is a staggeringly high number of hours under the circumstances, and the objectors reasonably wonder — as should the court — how class counsel could have possibly spent so many hours on this case,” the insurers told Davis in a filing.
Quinn Emanuel faces other challenges beyond overcoming the insurers' arguments.
It has already distributed the $185 million within the firm, it said in court papers, citing the lack of an order forbidding it to do so. The firm also told the court it obtained insurance on the award that includes an obligation to defend its rights to the full amount.
- In other legal fee news, plaintiffs attorneys at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd who reached a $350 million securities class action settlement with Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O) over its defunct social media website asked on Friday to be awarded $66.5 million.
The settlement in San Francisco federal court earlier this year resolved claims that, by March 2018, Google had learned about a software glitch that exposed Google+ users' personal data, yet concealed the problem for months while publicly stressing its commitment to data security.
Alphabet shares plummeted when the software glitch was revealed, wiping out tens of billions of dollars in market value, according to the lawsuit.
Google denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle and said it found no evidence that data were misused.
- A federal judge in Chicago on Friday signed off on a $94 million fee award for three law firms pressing an antitrust lawsuit against 17 leading U.S. universities.
The firms -- Freedman Normand Friedland, Gilbert Litigators and Counselors, and Berger Montague -- accused the schools of favoring wealthy applicants for admission, short-changing students who sought financial aid.
Ten schools, including Brown, Yale and Columbia universities, have settled so far for a cumulative $284 million. The settling schools and remaining defendants have denied any liability.
(Legal Fee Tracker is a weekly feature exploring attorney compensation awards and disputes in class actions, bankruptcies and other matters. Please send tips or suggestions to [email protected].)
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