NY bar gives diversity blueprint, lawyers who sued Tesla board want $10,000 an hour, Camp Lejeune attorney fees capped at 25%, and more ??

?? Good morning from The Legal File! Here are today's top legal stories:

?? With diversity efforts under fire, New York bar gives blueprint for the legal profession

The New York State Bar Association on Sept. 20 offered an industrywide blueprint for maintaining and increasing the ranks of law students, judges, and attorneys from groups that have traditionally been underrepresented within the legal profession while staying within the bounds of the law.

Its report comes three months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision barring race-conscious college admissions, and mere weeks after two major law firms were sued over their diversity fellowship programs.

The New York bar's Task Force on Advancing Diversity recommended that law schools move away from standardized testing and from prioritizing grade-point averages in admissions, and it said schools should consider a broader range of criteria to help identify strong candidates.

Law firms should recruit from a wider array of law schools while also auditing their diversity programs to identify potential legal risks, the task force found.

Courts should promote judgeships as viable career opportunities for attorneys of all backgrounds and develop strategic plans to bolster diversity, the task force said.

The New Your State Bar Association convened the 50-member task force in June. It was co-chaired by former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Brad Karp, chair of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The task force also included 15 law firm chairs and three law school deans.

Read more: https://reut.rs/3PplncW

?? Lawyers who sued Tesla board for excess pay want $10,000 an hour

A legal team that forced Tesla's directors to agree in July to return more than $700 million in compensation to the automaker for allegedly overpaying themselves are now seeking a huge payday of their own.

The lawyers want a judge to approve $229 million in fees, or $10,690 an hour, according to a Sept. 8 filing in Delaware's Court of Chancery.

The proposed fee award, if approved, would be among the largest ever to result from a shareholder lawsuit filed against a board. The sum would be distributed among lawyers from four firms that spent several years building a case against the compensation paid to Tesla's directors from 2017 to 2020.

Partners and other staff from the law firms of Bleichmar Fonti & Auld and Fields Kupka & Shukurov, both of New York, each billed more than 10,000 hours on the case. McCarter & English attorneys and staff in Wilmington, Delaware and Ronald King, a Lansing, Michigan-based attorney with the Clark Hill firm, also billed hundreds of hours.

Delaware courts have approved higher hourly rates. In 2012, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed a $304 million fee in a Southern Copper shareholder lawsuit involving $2 billion of damages. The fee worked out to $35,000 an hour, and the defendants opposed it. The state's high court said judges should examine the outcome achieved, not the hourly rate.

Read more: https://reut.rs/46j1Gu5

??Camp Lejeune attorney fees capped at 25%, US Justice Dept says

The U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of the Navy say attorneys representing people hurt by contaminated water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune cannot receive more than 25% of any client’s recovery as fees.

The DOJ and the Navy added the fee caps on Sept. 15 to a guidance document for victims interested in the government’s new elective option for settling Camp Lejeune claims without going to court, which offers a set amount of money as compensation for a specific set of illnesses.

Fees for attorneys whose clients take the elective option or settle administrative claims against the government would be capped at 20%, while those with clients who pursue litigation would collect 25%.

The government, in including the cap in the guidance, cited the Federal Tort Claims Act, which sets the limits on fees in claims against the government over negligence or wrongful acts by federal employees. Legislation to cap Camp Lejeune attorneys’ fees has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, but it has not moved forward.

Read more: https://reut.rs/45X4jSl

?? Covington client takes on SEC subpoena fight after law firm settles

An unnamed client of law firm Covington & Burling intervened in the firm’s subpoena battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 20, fighting to keep its identity secret from the financial regulator even after Covington reached a settlement.

The company said in a court filing that it had a “cognizable interest in preventing disclosure of its identity.”

The move to intervene, which a Washington federal judge quickly approved, allows the client to appeal a July court order directing Covington to reveal the company’s name to the SEC as part of a securities investigation tied to a 2020 cyberattack on the law firm.

The appeal will prolong a court fight over the identity of Covington’s public company clients that has raised questions about when the U.S. government can gather information from law firms about who they represent.

Read more: https://reut.rs/48k9Owe

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