[BROKERDIRT] {{FL-FC-Defense}} Re:Fees
Prince Donnahoe
r...@gate.net
I also believe Kenneth Walton has successfully recovered as well
K...@WJBLegal.com
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Received: Wed, 07 May 2014 09:58:04 PM EDT
From: fl-foreclosure...@googlegroups.com
To: Digest recipients <fl-foreclosure...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: {{FL-FC-Defense}} Digest for fl-foreclosure...@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic
Group: http://groups.google.com/group/fl-foreclosure-defense-group/topics
- Motion to Determine Attorney Fees in Broward [1 Update]
- Jose <jo...@thediazlawfirm.com> May 07 09:00AM -0700
I am set to appear as an expert witness for defense counsel at n attorney's
fee hearing in a foreclosure case in Broward County. If any of you have
received fee awards in Broward, would you mind sharing them with me as a
basis for my opinion as to what a reasonable hourly rate is in Broward?
Please feel free to send copies of the fee awards to me directly at my
e-mail below.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Jose O. Diaz, Esq.
The Diaz Law Firm, P.A.
1490 W. 68th Street, Suite 104
Hialeah, FL 33014
Telephone: 305-271-7766
Facsimile: 786-431-1357
E-mail: jo...@thediazlawfirm.com
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Jose Diaz
Thanks for the suggestion.
Richard Shuster
lobal mega-firm Baker & McKenzie in July raised its hourly billing rates in its Miami outpost across the board, leading the charge across the $900 threshold.
Miami managing partner and senior tax lawyer Robert F. Hudson said the firm brought his office's billing rates closer in line with outposts in other large U.S. cities. The lowest partner billing rate in Miami is now $625. Associate billing rates now range from a low of $270 to the $600s for a senior associate.
The firm has U.S. offices in New York, Washington, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco and Palo Alto, California.
"We're not identical because we didn't want to raise more than a certain amount, but we're pretty close," he said. For example he said peers in international tax law in New York are charging $1,000 an hour. "I didn't want to charge that."
While many firms moved selectively with hourly rates hikes this year, not all were buying into the new era of modest post-recession legal fee rate hikes, according to the Daily Business Review's annual survey of lawyer compensation, which included a review of fee applications and invoices from more than 40 firms.
Hudson is at the top end in South Florida.
"I am at $925 now. We raised rates across the board, and we haven't seen any material push back. Of course clients have only seen it for one month so far. They are just now getting August bills," he said. He added it's common for high-volume clients to ask for a 10 percent discount.
"I think people get good value. So far it seems to be accepted fine, and we're making everybody work harder and smarter."
Other South Florida lawyers are known to have rates in the $900s.
The survey found most South Florida lawyers bill in the $400s and $500s. Many hourly billing increases scattered among partners and associates, but also found many instances where rates were flat or where firms discounted rates or used alternative fee structures.
Waiting For Elections
Joseph Altonji at Law Vision Group in Chicago said hourly rate increases nationally and in Florida since 2009 have tended to keep pace with inflation or apply selectively for star partners in sought-after fields.
"For years firms were raising rates by doubling the rate of inflation. It ended in 2007. Some people sort of wish that was going to happen again, but it's not," he said.
"There are firms in South Florida doing extremely well in the market and firms that are doing poorly. I expect average rate increases in the two to four percent range — at most — with some at zero," Altonji said. "Firms are taking a much harder look at individual performance rather than just raising everybody five percent instead of what they used to do. "
Altonji said the elections play a part. "Everybody is playing wait and see — we are not going to do anything until we know what the new rules are," he said.
Among firms raising rates for select attorneys, Greenberg Traurig boosted hourly rates at varying percentages; 3 percent for one; 10 percent for another. (For example banking partner Mark Bloom's rate rose from $825 to $850 this year, and partner Scott Grossman's rate went from $550 to $605. The rates were disclosed in documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court where Greenberg has been representing the estate of the original BankUnited since 2009.)
Greenberg associates went up to a high of $440 compared to $400 in last year's survey.
Like some other firms with large bankruptcy practices, Berger Singerman's rates went up by $20 to $30 per hour.
Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, whose lawyers are ushering a Cabi Developers affiliate through Chapter 11, increased rates for various partners. Mindy Mora went up 6 percent to $600 from $565.
Klugler Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine bumped up rates, as did Ver Ploeg & Lumpkin. Both are working on the Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler law firm bankruptcy case in Fort Lauderdale.
PIP Rates
Some personal injury protection lawyer rates are going up courtesy of the courts. Although they do not often bill by the hour, courts have awarded higher hourly fees for PIP lawyers.
Miami appellate lawyer Marlene Reiss confirmed she was awarded $500 an hour in a Miami case this year. Before that she was getting $475. "I do a fair amount of appellate work. Based on 22 years of experience, that's the hourly rate the judges determined to be reasonable. Five hundred is certainly the upper range," she said.
Fort Lauderdale lawyer Adolfo Podrecca, a litigator with the personal injury law firm Fazio, DiSalvo, Cannon, Abers, Podrecca, Fazio & Carroll, said his rate set by the court has been $400, but the notion of hourly billing rates "is a fiction" because cases are normally taken on contingency.
"The last time I went in front of a judge I was awarded $400, but that is not what a client would want to pay me. It is not a real example of what the market will bear. Average people would not be able to hire a lawyer for $400 an hour," he said.
On the other hand a federal judge in Vermont told Miami lawyers from Hunton & Willliams they were charging "exorbitant" hourly rates in a First Amendment case and ordered fees of $300 per hour for partner Tom Julin and $200 for senior associates.
The judge awarded Hunton & Williams $2.24 million in a successful challenge to a Vermont law prohibiting use of doctor prescriptions by pharmaceutical marketing companies.
But the judge's order said: "Mr. Julin's average hourly rate for the entire litigation was $670.66. Awarding associates hourly rates over $400 would be unconscionable in this litigation where attorney Hemley, a competent Vermont partner with over forty years of experience, requests an average hourly rate of $320. The average hourly rate of nearly $200 requested for Hunton & Williams' paralegals is also exorbitant."
A reasonable hourly rate is "what a reasonable, paying client would be willing to pay," and a reasonable paying client wishes to spend the minimum necessary to litigate the case effectively, the judge observed.
New Firm
Meanwhile some new law firms were setting hourly rates but also looking at alternative billing structures.
Dan Gelber said his new firm Gelber Schachter & Greenberg in Miami established his hourly rate of $650, but he said alternative fee arrangements are common.
"We're trying to have a little bit of flexibility," Gelber said. He is a former state senator and Akerman Senterfitt partner who started the firm in early September with two former Stearns Weaver lawyers.
"I do hear from clients with some regularity they would like a different approach because to some of them they would rather have more certainty in their fees. For others, it's not as important. They want the hourly billing," Gelber said. One client pays a monthly rate consisting of a blended rate for the firm's work as a group, he said.
Former Akerman Senterfitt environmental partner Michael Goldstein, who started the Goldstein Environmental Law Firm in January with two associates, uses flat rates.
"Hourly rates can create an adversarial relationship with the client," he said.
Goldstein said his rack rate of $675 can apply if clients prefer hourly billing, but he said 90 percent of his clients want fixed fees because of the predictability of it, or so they can pay by the task. "My goal is to get to 95 percent" of fixed-rate clients.
"We will do billable because some clients remain more comfortable with conventional rates," he said. "I am a big proponent of fixed fees. I think more small and middle size firms will have to move toward this model to at the very least maintain market share. There are too many lawyers in the marketplace."
The survey found firms using other alternative rate structures to replace straight hourly fees
In the Palm Beach Finance bankruptcy case in West Palm Beach, Meland Russin Budwick represents the liquidating trustee for the estate and bills according to a hybrid rate structure.
Meland Russin discounted standard rates by 25 percent. It meant a partner like Michael Budwick billed $424 an hour instead of his top rate of $565. But on top of the hourly fees, the law firm is entitled to a contingency bonus of 10 percent of assets recovered for the estate through litigation.
Altonji said of all the alternative rate structures, the most popular form is fixed rates, but they are not yet one-fifth of the market.
"It is not taking over as fast as people had hoped, but five years ago was probably 5 to 7 percent of the market. Hybrid fees are much slower in terms of growth."
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Stephen R. Garcia-Vidal
Does anyone know of a foreclosure attorney that can dissolve a writ of possession in a foreclosure case in Broward?
Stephen R. Garcia-Vidal, Esquire
Stephen R. Garcia-Vidal, P.L.L.C.
Garcia-Vidal Law Firm
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Coral Gables, Florida 33134
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