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&lt;p&gt;A looong look in &lt;i&gt;The Times&lt;/i&gt; at the controversy brewing over the huge fees being collected by lawyers, consultants, and accountants in connection with the recent mega Chapter 11 cases: Chrysler, GM, WaMu, and, especially, Lehman Brothers. The fees in the Lehman case already exceed $730 million and are inevitably heading up to and beyond $1 billion. The article has much fun with the particulars of the bills: $263,000 for photocopies in four months! $2,100 in limo rides by one partner in one month! $2.54 for gum! etc. But what is most &amp;ldquo;shocking&amp;rdquo; in the article is the public and vitriolic fight over what constitutes proper billing practices in bankruptcy cases. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to one school of thought, there is something &amp;ldquo;unique&amp;rdquo; (meaning &amp;ldquo;slightly crooked&amp;rdquo;) about the culture of bankruptcy. According to former MoFo bankruptcy partner and current law prof Nancy B. Rapoport: &amp;ldquo;I don&amp;rsquo;t think professionals cheat the client, but in a number of ways they can talk themselves into doing things that they wouldn&amp;rsquo;t do for clients outside of bankruptcy. &amp;hellip; If you send eight people to a hearing because there is an outside chance they might have to speak at that hearing and you try that outside of bankruptcy the client will go ballistic.&amp;rdquo; Not to mention the $500/hour the junior associates are being billed out at while they fiddle with their BlackBerries at unnecessarily crowded hearings.&amp;nbsp; This situation &amp;ldquo;violates any sense of proportion,&amp;rdquo; according to Kenneth Feinberg, the D.C. lawyer whom the court appointed to monitor fees associated with the Lehman bankruptcy. &amp;ldquo;This is a very important test case; it&amp;rsquo;s bigger than just Lehman.&amp;rdquo; What is being &amp;ldquo;tested&amp;rdquo; is whether the fee examiners in this huge Chapter 11 cases can rein in&amp;nbsp;the costs. Among other things, Feinberg wants to end the practice of law firms submitting invoices which include the time billed&amp;nbsp;in preparation of the invoice. (&lt;i&gt;The Times&lt;/i&gt; describes this as &amp;ldquo;akin to a doctor charging a patient to prepare a bill after expensive, complex surgery.&amp;rdquo;) According to Feinberg, &amp;ldquo;Lawyers don&amp;rsquo;t charge for invoice preparation except in bankruptcy &amp;hellip; I&amp;rsquo;ve prepared bills my entire professional life. You don&amp;rsquo;t charge a fee. Most people would argue that charging anything is inappropriate.&amp;rdquo; (Milbank Tweed has charged $148,426 just to compile its bills and time records.)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Moreover, Feinberg et al. argue that the massive fees associated with these cases reduce the money left over for creditors. While Weil Gotshal has billed the Lehman estate for more than $164 million to date, the proposed reorganization plan pays unsecured creditors less than 15 cents on the dollar. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, on the other side of this debate are the bankruptcy lawyers and other professionals. Weil&amp;rsquo;s Harvey Miller&amp;mdash;invariably referred to as the &amp;ldquo;dean of the bankruptcy bar&amp;rdquo;&amp;mdash;comes out swinging: &amp;nbsp;&amp;ldquo;The legal skill we used to sell Lehman&amp;rsquo;s North American capital markets business to Barclays saved 10,000 jobs and preserved the business itself, capturing value that otherwise would have been lost.&amp;rdquo; On Feinberg&amp;rsquo;s suggestion that Weil cut its fees: &amp;ldquo;Mr. Feinberg doesn&amp;rsquo;t know what he&amp;rsquo;s talking about &amp;hellip; We don&amp;rsquo;t generally give discounts. Just because bankruptcy has been the hot legal area for the last 19 months doesn&amp;rsquo;t demand you cut fees.&amp;rdquo; According to Bryan Marsal of the restructuring specialists Alvarez &amp;amp; Marsal, &amp;ldquo;The size of this case justifies the size of the fees.&amp;rdquo; Marsal estimates that his firm&amp;rsquo;s work has boosted the recovery value for Lehman creditors by up to $5 billion. He characterizes the work of fee examiners as &amp;ldquo;hooey.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Usually, BigLaw partners are bland and circumspect in speaking to the media. Not the 77 year-old Harvey Miller. In response to the GM bankruptcy&amp;rsquo;s fee examiner&amp;rsquo;s recommendation that Weil make a 5 percent reduction in its rates: &amp;ldquo;[The examiner] is way off base &amp;hellip; He perceives himself to be a sage, giving advice to the world, and that is not his role.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;-posted by brian&lt;/p&gt;

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