Plaintiffs attorneys who wrangled a recent $32 million class-action settlement from Bank of America Corp. are entitled to a whopping 70 percent less than the $8 million compensation they sought, a federal judge has decided.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila of the Northern District of California was unsparing in his dissection of the fees requested by 10 law firms that took on Bank of America on behalf of plaintiffs alleging they were harassed by the bank’s debt-collection robocalls. In the end, using the lodestar method, Davila found just $2.4 million in fees to be justified.