Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein and other plaintiffs firms will pocket nearly $16 million as part of a record-breaking deal to settle claims that Capital One Financial Corp. bombarded consumers with unwanted phone calls. The fee is less than the plaintiffs lawyers asked for, but it's far more than class action objector Theodore Frank would have given them.

U.S. District Judge James F. Holderman in Chicago on Thursday signed off on a $75.5 million agreement to resolve allegations that Capital One violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. In granting final approval for the settlement—the largest ever in a TCPA case—Holderman awarded $15.67 million to plaintiffs lawyers at Lieff Cabraser, Terrell Marshall Daudt & Willie and Keough Law Ltd.

The approval came over the objections of about a dozen consumers, including Jeffrey Collins, whose cause was taken up by Center for Class Action Fairness lawyers Frank and Melissa Holyoak. CCAF—which has had lots of success challenging settlements for benefiting plaintffs lawyers at class members' expense—argued that Lieff Cabraser and its co-counsel had proposed too high a fee compared with the risks they took in pursuing the case.