Lawyer Claims $11,000 Per Hour Fees from Motorola"

A lawyer who lost a legal battle against Motorola is trying to claim US$11,000 per hour for his work in the lawsuit. Willie Gary, who is best known in legal circles as "The Giant Killer," is noted for taking on some of America's most powerful companies and is now representing SPS Technologies which had tried to sue Motorola for US$10 billion. SPS claims that the company had stolen its technology and abandoned a motoring system which would have linked GPS with roadside assistance.

As Motorola violated a court order during the failed lawsuit, Gary is actually asking the court to consider an award of US$22,000 per hour for his work. His law firm is entitled to seek extra payments where the defendant has broken a court order.

The average for this sort of work would be closer to the US$600 per hour. While lawyers can sometimes claim vast fees for legal work when they win a case, the oddity in this case is that the lawsuit was lost. The trial concluded last November, when a mistrial was declared after the jury could not agree on a verdict.

Gary's requested $11,000 hourly fee, for 2,211 hours of work would earn him US$24.3 million. However, the legal firm says that it has found a further 19,000 billable hours spanning the five years of the legal action. In addition, the lawyers may cite the so called "lodestar calculation" which allows them to increase the hourly payment rate based on the complexity of the lawsuit.

Gary has previously won over 150 multi million dollar suits, including a $500 million award against a Canadian Funeral Home. Other "victims" include Disney and Anheuser-Busch.

He famously owns two private jets, named the Wings of Justice and the Wings of Justice II - the later of which was recently refitted with an 18-carat gold sink and $1.2 million sound system."

Posted to the site on 12th April 2007