Palm Beach Circuit Judge Donald Hafele granted Greenberg Traurig more than $1.2 million in attorney fees and costs in a ruling that provides insight into billing rates at one of the nation's largest law firms.

Greenberg Traurig is the eighth-largest U.S. law firm based on attorney head count, according to the National Law Journal's 2017 NLJ 500 ranking. With about $1.39 billion in gross revenue in 2016, it ranked 14th on The American Lawyer's 2017 Am Law 200. On the 2016 Global100 survey, it was the world's 19th highest-grossing law firm.

The details in the Palm Beach Circuit Court ruling point to rates for high-priced attorneys who billed up to $785 per hour.

“The court has reviewed the record and agrees with the parties' counsel that their hours and attorneys' fees and costs are reasonable,” Hafele ruled March 7.

The final judgment resolved a dispute that Greenberg Traurig has shepherded since 2008 when the firm entered an ongoing fight on behalf of shopping center investors in an ownership dispute. It capped about 23 years of litigation in what Greenberg Traurig believes is the oldest continuous case in the Palm Beach Circuit Court.

The case dates back to 1995 with Becker & Poliakoff serving as plaintiffs counsel until 2008. It pitted plaintiffs Delray Property Investments Inc. and SOSQ Property Investments Inc. against Plaza La Mer Inc., South Square Development Inc. and Boca Raton businessman Harry Hahamovitch.

Their feud stemmed from the sale of two commercial properties — Plaza La Mer in Juno Beach and South Square in Brooksville. The one-time business associates had a profit-sharing agreement, but plaintiffs claimed Hahamovitch fraudulently received a $144,000 commission.

Before Greenberg Traurig entered the case, the jury agreed Hahamovitch had committed fraud. But the court then rejected the plaintiffs' argument that the finding wiped out the defendants' right to share in the venture's profits.

“The next question was how do you define their profit participation, and how do you calculate them?” said Greenberg Traurig shareholder Stephen Mendelsohn. “That took from 2008 until 2013 to determine.”

It took years for a court-appointed accountant to unravel the shopping centers' finances on a month-by-month basis. A sticking point was whether the investment had generated any gains from which the defense would benefit.

“It was still theoretical,” Mendelsohn said.

That question turned on a complicated formula the parties used to determine profits. The algorithm would keep a neutral party, CBIZ Inc. accountant Bradley N. McIver, occupied for about five years.

“I wouldn't say (the formula) was as complicated as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, but it had similar principles,” Mendelsohn quipped.

In complex litigation that the Fourth District Court of Appeal once described as a marathon, the defense asserted a right to $10 million in cash flow on the Juno Beach property alone. But the trial court ruled in the plaintiff's favor, and the Fourth DCA affirmed.

BILLING RATES

Hafele this month returned a million-dollar award for the plaintiffs' litigation expenses following a Sept. 26, 2017, appellate ruling ordering the circuit court to enter final judgment and calculate expenses for litigation from 2008 to 2013.

The order shows Mendelsohn billed at $405, $460, $525, $575 and $625 per hour over the years. Shareholder Marc Sinensky billed at $645 and $685. Brigid Cech Samole's rate ranged from $400 to $535. Appellate shareholder Elliot Scherker had the highest rate of $785 per hour.