Brooke Astor and Guardianship Fees
The court battle over 104-year-old socialite Brooke Astor has been well documented in the news media (Wikipedia has a nice summary here). A settlement agreement was recently signed by the parties, and now the bills are starting to come due. According to this New York Times article,...
In the seven weeks since the agreement, those involved in the case have filed bills with Justice John E. H. Stackhouse of State Supreme Court in Manhattan for fees totaling about $3 million for the services of 56 lawyers, 65 legal assistants, 6 accountants, 5 bankers, 6 doctors, 2 public relations firms and a law school professor. Under state law, such payments would come out of Mrs. Astor’s assets, valued at over $120 million.
Sheesh! Here's more:
The justice denied payments for the public relations firms, the time lawyers spent talking with reporters and the hours logged preparing the fee applications themselves.
I've never hired a PR firm or talked to reporters about a pending case -- I think kind of stuff is generally worthless. But I will say that -- at least in Cook County -- judges will NOT allow attorneys to be paid for the time they spend preparing their fee petition. Which makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
