Did the FDIC Get a Fair Fee From Cravath, Swaine & Moore?
The best proof that the federal government has hired a high-powered law firm in Cravath, Swaine & Moore is the firm's first piece of work: the fee agreement it negotiated for itself.</br></br>The federal government will pay some lawyers at the New York law firm as much as $600 an hour. That may look outrageous to American taxpayers, but in the crazy world of big-league litigation, many argue that this was not such a bad deal.</br></br>The government agreed to pay top partners, including the Cravath dynamic duo of Thomas D. Barr and David Boies, a "discounted" rate of $300 an hour - or as much as $600 an hour depending on their success in recouping billions of dollars lost in the savings and loan scandal.</br></br>That's "a whale of a bargain on today's market," said one well-known litigator, who ought to know since he charges $400 an hour himself.</br></br>Big-league litigation, particularly in New York, is a world gone wild - a place where freshly minted associates make $83,000 a year, where armies of lawyers wage years-long wars, where even the losers take home millions in legal fees.