Arent Fox Partner Wants Pretrial Release Without Money Strings

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 19:16:13 GMT

And the arraignment watch for Arent Fox Partner Joseph Price continues. Price is scheduled to appear today at 2:30 p.m. before Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg, the judge who will preside over the case. Hearings scheduled for 10 a.m. and...

Mukasey to be Fine, Then Panel Gets Back to Debating Life Terms on Supreme Court

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:58:45 GMT

Though this morning’s Federalist Society panel opened on a somber note, the discussion on the topic at hand quickly got heated. Federalist Society president Eugene Meyer greeted the crowd with a few words about Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who collapsed...

Contra Costa Prosecutor Charged in Rape Case

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:52:00 GMT

The Contra Costa County prosecutor arrested on suspicion of rape will face state charges, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jerry Brown said this morning. Spokeswoman Dana Simas said she could not detail the charges that will be filed against Deputy...

The Contra Costa County prosecutor arrested on suspicion of rape will face state charges, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jerry Brown said this morning.

Spokeswoman Dana Simas said she could not detail the charges that will be filed against Deputy District Attorney Michael Gressett, but that there will be a complaint.

Gressett was due to be arraigned in Martinez this morning at 8:30 a.m. His attorney, Michael Cardoza of Walnut Creek’s Cardoza Law Offices, did not answer a call to his cell phone.

The rather unpleasant list of charges and other case details, after the jump:

Gressett was arrested Oct. 2 on suspicion of forcible rape, oral copulation, sodomy, penetration with a foreign object and the use of a firearm during a felony. Cardoza told the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday that the AG’s office told him they planned to file charges, and that he believed they would be similar to the original allegations.

The local DA’s office recused itself from Gressett’s prosecution. A source close to the case said in October that Gressett’s alleged victim was a fellow deputy DA.

In Gressett’s 21-year career with the office, he has run unsuccessfully for DA three times, beginning in 1994. In 2002, he lost to the assistant chief DA at the time, Bob Kochly, who won and ran again, uncontested, in 2006.

Gressett tried to outflank his opponents with a "tougher"-on-crime message during his 1998 campaign. He said that he would not plea-bargain any serious violent felonies and told The Recorder he was not unopposed to the idea of making rape a capital crime.

Further Reading: The Mercury-News has a story up.

— Evan Hill

Transition Team Focusing On Role Of Presidential Legal Advisers

blog@acslaw.org (ACS News Blogger) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:23:42 GMT

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) garnered a great deal of media attention and notoriety for its role in advising President George W. Bush on controversial counterterrorism methods, including the use of harsh interrogations by the CIA.

USA Today reports that President-elect Barack Obama’s Justice Department transition team includes key members who have previously worked in the OLC and have voiced strong concerns about the OLC’s legal advice to Bush, which many consider wobbly at best. For example, the newspaper reports that Indiana University law professor Dawn E. Johnsen, a leader on the Obama transition team, has been “among the most publicly critical of OLC’s backing of President Bush’s counterterrorism measures, particularly on interrogation techniques.”

The newspaper also notes that Johnsen, a member the ACS Board of Directors, provided Congress with ideas for restoring the OLC, which is charged with providing legal advice to the president to ensure compliance with the Constitution and federal law.

“Johnsen, joined by 18 other attorneys who had worked at OLC, offered Congress 10 principles for the office, including timely release of opinions that might conflict with federal law,” reports USA Today. “Three of the other attorneys, who signed the statement, including Harvard University’s David Barron, also are on Obama’s Justice and Civil Rights transition team.”

Earlier this year, Johnsen testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee panel about the OLC’s role in providing legal advice to the Bush administration on counterterrorism issues. “OLC has been widely and deservedly criticized for the substance of its legal interpretations, which at least at times have not reflected principled, accurate assessments of applicable legal constraints, but instead were tainted by the Administration’s desired policy ends and overriding objective of expanding presidential power,” Johnsen said.

In an article that is part of a broad ACS package of proposals and ideas for reforming legal and justice policy in the new administration, Johnsen writes that the next administration must take steps to ensure that the OLC serves as check on presidential power, not as a rubberstamp.

“OLC’s charge is to help the President achieve desired policies in conformity with the law, and that often involves actively devising alternatives to a legally flawed proposal. Because the President makes the final call and bears ultimate responsibility for legal determinations as well as policy choices, OLC’s advice should fully inform the President, as well as other readers, and address strong arguments counter to its conclusions,” maintains Johnsen.

See the ACS Law and Justice page for Johnsen’s entire article, “All the President’s Lawyers: How to Avoid Another ‘Torture Opinion’ Debacle,” along with the other articles in the ACS package, “A Fresh Start for a New Administration: Reforming Law and Justice Polices.”

Law Blog Chats with Marc Elias, Lawyer for Al Franken

lawblog@wsj.com. (Dan Slater) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:56:00 GMT

Mr. Franken and his left-wing allies also know that if Mr. Franken couldn’t win election in this fabulous Democratic year, then the not-so-funnyman never will. — WSJ editorial, “Mischief in Minnesota,” Nov. 12

. . . I imagine your readers have probably figured out that the Journal’s editorial was simply wrong. . . — letter to the WSJ editor, “There’s Nothing Unusual About the Minnesota Recount,” by Marc Elias, a Perkins Coie lawyer representing Al Franken’s campaign, Nov. 21

The joker’s goal is to sow enough doubt about the vote so that if he loses the recount he can attract public support to challenge the final result in court. . . Minnesota should respond by telling Mr. Franken that even a celebrity has to play by the rules. — WSJ editorial, “Al Franken’s Minnesota,” Nov. 21
________________________________________________

Senate candidate Al Franken bowls, Oct. 14, 2008. (AP/Jim Mone)

Not everyone will be interested in the minutia of Minnesota’s recount to determine the winner in the senatorial race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken. So we’ll simply point you to the back-and-forthing, referenced above, between the WSJ’s ed board and Marc Elias, the Perkins Coie lawyer representing the campaign of Al Franken — who, on a completely unrelated note, graduated from the Law Blog’s high school about 27 years before we did. (He was on the wrestling team. We were not.)

Yesterday, we got a few minutes to chat with Elias (pictured, below), who had spent a chunk of his day getting the press up to speed on the status of the recount.

Hi Marc. Crazy times in Minnesota. Briefly, can you give us a rundown of the legal issues surrounding the recount?

There has not been as much litigation around this recount as you might think. There are only two suits. One filed by the Coleman campaign to prevent Hennepin County from counting 32 ballots. [It has yet to be resolved.] The other legal skirmish is that we sued Ramsey County for access to lists of voters whose absentee ballots hadn?t been counted. We won [on Wednesday]. It?s an effort to try to get access to data. It may or may not yield anything.

The recount must be pretty work-intensive.

It’s a monumental undertaking in Minnesota because all the ballots are counted by hand and done at a county level. So there are 110 counting sites and multiple tables at each site.

Tell us about this robust politics practice you have.

Within the firm there’s a political law practice that specializes in representing candidates, parties, PACs, and organizations and companies that want to be involved in politics. Pretty much anything that touches on politics. Within that practice, my own practice has mostly been representing Democratic senators and their campaigns, such as Paul Wellstone, Mark Dayton and Amy Klobuchar.

All Minnesota Senators. What’s the tie?

No tie to Minnesota. A lot of this business is just referral work. You get to know people. For instance, Colleen [a public relations executive working for the Franken campaign] will work for Franken or Mark Dayton, and she’ll tell someone, “Hey, I know a lawyer who can be helpful.”

Is Al Franken the funniest candidate you’ve ever worked with?

I think he?s one of the nicest candidates I?ve ever worked with. He?s funny at a personal level and serious about the campaign and serious as a candidate.

Ok, Marc. Thanks for taking the time.

Sure. Thanks.

Plaintiffs' Counsel Wins Suit, Gets Chastised for Excessive Fees and Expenses

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:35:33 GMT

The Fulton County Daily Reporter (via law.com) has an interesting story on the just-ended successful corporate class action against Coca-Cola (which was found to have committed "fraud on the market" by inflating its income. Plaintiffs may have succeeded, but their...

More Ex-Thelen Lawyers Land at Nixon Peabody

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:24:25 GMT

Eleven more Thelen lawyers have found a new home in time for the holidays. Nixon Peabody has brought on a team of energy lawyers from the now-dissolved Thelen across its offices. The group focuses on energy project development and finance,...

Bar Exam Results Day

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:23:34 GMT

The week before Thanksgiving always feels a little tense to me because it's the week that July bar exam results are released. For all of our graduates who will receive results today, we hope that all of you receive good...

St. John's Law School Mourns The Passing Of Its Dean

professorrubenstein@gmail.com (Mitchell H. Rubinstein ) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:11:38 GMT

Since so many of our readers are from the St. John's community, I thought I should let people know that yesterday I became aware that our Dean, Mary Daly passed away after a long illness. SJU's announcement is available here....

Master & Settlement: Ten years of advocacy and more litigation

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:05:10 GMT

Having written this week (here, here, here, here and here) on the various public policy aspects of the tobacco master settlement agreement 10 years after its enactment, we now get to perhaps the most important and lasting consequences of the...

Mukasey Says He's Ready for Work Again

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:52:27 GMT

Attorney General Michael Mukasey plans to return to work this afternoon. The Justice Department has released this note that it says Mukasey has sent to all department employees: Dear Colleagues, As you may have heard, I collapsed briefly last night...

Lawyer: Obama Should Start Pardoning Right Away

lawblog@wsj.com. (Dan Slater) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:46:00 GMT

On Tuesday, we did a bit of pardon speculation and asked whether President Bush, on his way out of the White House, might have a Marc Rich moment and make a controversial get-outta-jail-free pick. (Conrad Black, anyone? Hard to say, but Slate thinks Michael Milken and Scooter Libby are pardon possibilities.)

So far, we noted, Bush has used his pardon power sparingly ? approving only 157 pardons. The number represents the lowest for all presidents since World War II, with the exception of G.H.W. Bush, who, during his four-year administration, pardoned only 74 individuals.

Recently, the National Journal went into depth on the history of the pardon power’s “misuse and disuse over the last 25 years.” The NJ’s David Herbert interviewed Margaret Colgate Love, a lawyer specializing in, among other things, executive clemency. Love served as U.S. pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997 and currently directs the ABA Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions.

Here are some highlights:

NJ:

Love: . . . [T]wo things have happened in the federal system in the past 25 years. First, we instituted a new sentencing system, and there was a sense of getting tough on crime . . . with mandatory minimum sentences and long guideline sentences. There is no other way to get out of prison. We have no parole in the federal system, and it has become a very inflexible, rigid system, and people are sent to prison for very long terms, and there’s no way to get out.

At the same time, for people who are out of prison who are trying to become reintegrated into society, there are many, many collateral consequences that keep them from exercising their civil rights and getting jobs, that are mitigated, avoided, only through a pardon. So people really need pardon these days, and it seems like at the very time that people need pardon the most, it has become essentially unavailable to them.

NJ: What role would you like to see pardon playing that it isn’t now?

Love: . . . [P]ardon . . . functions as sort of a corrective to the legal system . . .Unfortunately, the legal system doesn’t always do perfect justice, and that’s where you need the pardon power. That’s the way Alexander Hamilton conceived of it: to make what he called “exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt.” That’s kind of a nice phrase. But for many years the pardon power has not worked like that.

NJ: I know you take a dim view of speculation about which well-connected or celebrity convict — Marion Jones’ name has been floated — will get a pardon. Does that theater have any value, though, since it keeps the pardon process in the public eye? Or does it cheapen the privilege?

Love: Well, I think it would be preferable, in my view, if the president used the power more regularly to benefit ordinary people and he used it to help the public understand how the justice system works. . . And so I think it’s kind of distracting when you get a lot of celebrities who are applying who would not ordinarily be eligible under the Department of Justice’s own regulations. . . .

NJ: Let’s say Obama was committed to using pardon for the lofty goals you’ve mentioned. Considering the bad rap the pardon process has developed in the last few decades, how would you advise him to go about reviving the pardon tradition?

Love: I would advise him to start pardoning pretty much right away. Give pardon to little people who are not particularly controversial, just ordinary people who have cases that fit within the Justice Department guidelines. I would also recommend that he do some grants that show some of the problems that people face in trying to rehabilitate themselves coming back to the community. . .

NJ: In more controversial cases where you have groups that feel very strongly one way or the other, how do you minimize their role so that they don’t overly politicize a pardon?

Love: Well, the pardon power is necessarily political. I mean, the only check on it is public opinion. So it’s necessarily political in that good sense that the president is really acting as the conscience of the community. So if he can’t sell his message to the public, then he’s just going to have to do what he has to do. . .

Order List for November 21, 2008 (part 1)

scotxblog@gmail.com (Don Cruse) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:21:16 GMT

The Texas Supreme Court released two decisions with today’s order list. The Court also granted review in two other cases. It may have been “Oilfield Day” at the Court, with both of today’s decisions connected to the drilling industry. One decides what happens when a single lease that is part of a pooling arrangement [...]

The Texas Supreme Court released two decisions with today’s order list. The Court also granted review in two other cases.

It may have been “Oilfield Day” at the Court, with both of today’s decisions connected to the drilling industry. One decides what happens when a single lease that is part of a pooling arrangement expires. The other decides which law applied to a particular oilfield accident that occurred in Louisiana. Justice Brister wrote both opinions, both for unanimous courts.

Wagner Brown, Ltd., et al. v. Jane Turner Sheppard, Individually and as Independent Executrix of the Estate of Sybil Turner, Deceased, No. 06-0845 (Justice Willett not sitting)
Sonat Exploration Co. v. Cudd Pressure Control, Inc., No. 06-0979.

I’ll have some thoughts on these cases in a later post, either this afternoon or this weekend.

Two New Petitions Granted

The Court granted two petitions for review with today’s orders. Both of these cases have been scheduled for oral argument on January 13, 2009.

Louis M. Ditta, Guardian of the Estate of Doris L. Conte v. Susan C. Conte and Joseph P. Conte, Jr., No. 07-1026, from the First Court of Appeals. (Briefs and COA opinion linked on DocketDB)
City of Waco v. Debra Kirwan, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of Brad McGehee, No. 08-0121, from the Waco Court. (Briefs and COA opinion linked on DocketDB)

DOJ: 'No Indication' Mukasey Suffered Stroke or Heart-Related Problem

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:20:12 GMT

A Department of Justice spokeswoman said this morning that Attorney General Michael Mukasey appears to have suffered a fainting spell at Thursday night’s Federalist Society dinner. “All of the tests have been reassuring. There is no indication that he suffered...

Tillinghast-Towers Perrin 2008 tort cost update

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:14:09 GMT

The insurance consulting organization, per its press release, "has issued its 2008 report, which measures tort costs for 2007 and shows trends dating back as far as 1950". It indicates that the cost of the liability insurance sector of the...

Nationwide Layoff Watch: Stealth Layoffs at Fried Frank

tips@abovethelaw.com (David Lat) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:50:57 GMT

We've gotten credible information that Fried Frank has laid off at least 15 associates from their corporate department, including 6 in the real estate practice group. A tipster collects the information in a clear way:

They are veiled as performance-based reviews, but virtually everyone is getting a negative review (mostly, it seems, to justify in a paper-trail [a decision] to not give bonuses)....
There has been no formal review process announced, and no one knows what directive came from management last weekend at the partner retreat, but it seems that each group was told to make cuts. People were completely taken off guard when they started getting calls earlier in the week calling them in for their reviews, some of which dredged up years-old information to use as justification for lay-offs, and many of which lasted only 5 minutes or so. Most of the layoffs have been mid-level associates and up, but most junior associates have not yet been reviewed.

The axe is expected to fall on the litigation side of the firm today.

The firm has not responded to voice messages or emails left earlier today. The number of layoffs could be higher than what we are reporting, but right now the best number is 15.

We understand that a three-month severance package has been offered.

Every single tipster (and there are a lot of them) said that the laid-off attorneys were told that they were being let go for performance reasons.

But that's not all they were told. Read the rest, after the jump.

MySpace: “You?re the Kind of Boy a Girl Would Kill Herself Over”

lawblog@wsj.com. (Dan Slater) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:27:00 GMT

A couple big revelations in the MySpace suicide trial, about to head into its fourth day in Los Angeles federal court:

Prosecutors have charged Lori Drew, a Missouri mother accused of taking part in a hoax that allegedly led to the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier, of violating the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act.

Yesterday, Ashley Grills, who was testifying under a grant of immunity, said Drew was directly involved in creating the bogus MySpace profile of a 16-year-old boy that was used to lure Meier into an online relationship. Grills, a longtime family friend of the Drews and an employee of Drew’s coupon distribution business, testified that she, Drew and Drew’s daughter, Sarah, were trying to figure out a way “to expose Megan” for rumors she’d allegedly been spreading about Sarah. Here’s the L.A. Times report.

Grills, 20, said she was the one who came up with the idea of the MySpace account, but that Drew agreed and “thought it was funny.” Grills testified that Drew was present when Grills sat at the computer and agreed to the MySpace terms of service, though they did not read them. Grills said she and Sarah thought they might get in trouble for fabricating the MySpace account, but that Drew told them “it was fine and people do it all the time.”

Much of the above testimony had already come out in prior reports on the case. But then Grills, according to the NYT, testified that Meier wrote the following shortly before taking her own life: ?You?re the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over? — a reference to the fictitious Josh Evans.

The message had never been revealed by Grills until this week. ?It was something I didn?t want to remember,? testified Grills, who said she had been hospitalized for depression after the suicide. ?I pushed it out of my mind.?

Drew’s lawyer, Dean Steward, went after Grills’s credibility, according to the NYT. ?Don?t you kind of have to say stuff they want to hear?? he said to Grills, motioning to prosecutors in a reference to her immunity agreement.

Also, under Steward’s cross-examination, Grills said she thought she sent the final e-mail telling Megan that the world would be better off without her from an AOL instant messaging service, not from the fake MySpace. In comments to a reporter outside the courtroom, Steward, noted the LAT, suggested that the revelation was a blow to the government’s claim of jurisdiction.

Texas Supreme Court Orders & Opinions 11/21/08

todd@appealsplus.com (D. Todd Smith) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:11:48 GMT

The Texas Supreme Court issued two new opinions with this week's regular orders. They are:

Wagner & Brown, Ltd. v. Sheppard (No. 06-0845), holding that, under the applicable pooling clauses, expiration of a lease in a pool of oil-and-gas-producing properties did not destroy the mineral interest owner's participation in the pooled unit. The Court remanded for a reassessment of the operator's damages and a determination whether the operator was entitled to equitable reimbursement for drilling or other pre-termination costs.
Sonat Exploration Co. v. Cudd Pressure Control, Inc. (No. 06-0979), agreeing for different reasons with the court of appeals' conclusion that Louisiana law applied and that the case should be remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.

Nationwide Layoff Watch: Public Defenders

tips@abovethelaw.com (David Lat) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:35:39 GMT

ATL has been providing in-depth coverage of firm layoffs, but we haven't written much about public defenders suffering the same fate. With state budgets experiencing big squeezes, public defenders' offices across the country are getting downsized, while their caseloads are getting upsized.

We wrote about layoffs in Kentucky, Minnesota, Florida, and Georgia back in July. In at least seven states, "public defenders' offices are refusing to take on cases or have sued to limit them," says the New York Times in an editorial today. It suggests that the constitutional right to counsel in state criminal proceedings is "hanging by a tattered thread:"

In a disturbing example of legal triage, a Florida judge ruled in September that the public defenders' office in Miami-Dade County could refuse to represent many poor defendants arrested on lesser felony charges so that its lawyers could provide a better defense for other clients. Behind the ruling were some chastening statistics: Over the past three years, the average number of felony cases handled by each lawyer rose from 367 annually to nearly 500. Misdemeanor case loads rose from 1,380 to 2,225.
Public defenders' offices all over the country are reporting similar problems. The immediate result is that innocent defendants may feel pressure to plead guilty. There also is an increased risk of wrongful conviction, which means that the real offenders would go free.

The NYT recommends meeting the budget shortfall by increasing the state registration fees for lawyers and expanding pro bono representation by the private bar.

Another out-of-the-box solution would be to get rid of all those pesky drug laws.

Remember to send in all of your layoffs stories and worries to tips@abovethelaw.com.

Hard Times and the Right to Counsel [New York Times]

Earlier: D.C. AG Office Faces Lawsuit After Firing Attorneys (And News of Layoffs For Public Defenders in Other States)

Judge: Client Can Expect to Pay $300/Night for Attorney’s Food, Lodging

lawblog@wsj.com. (Dan Slater) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:23:00 GMT

We’ve addressed the question of whether it’s prudent for a lawyer to charge a full hourly rate when traveling but not working. Now, a recent fee decision from a judge in the Coke “channel-stuffing” class action provides some guidance on how much it’s appropriate to spend on those business trips.

First, background: The Coke “channel-stuffing” case has been a long road to hoe for plaintiffs firm Coughlin Stoia. The securities class action against Coke, filed in 2000, alleged that the company artificially inflated its revenues through ?channel-stuffing? ? or persuading distributors to buy more product than they need in order to make business look brisker than it is. Back in February, we noted that a special master in the case recommended that Coughlin Stoia, which has worked on the case for seven years, be barred from serving as class counsel because it allegedly purchased ?stolen? Coke documents from a disgruntled former Coke exec. (The firm and the executives argued that neither thought they were taking Coke docs without authority because one of the executives had been ordered, when terminated, to ?clean out his office.?) In July, the case finally settled for $137.5 million.

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Court Judge Willis B. Hunt awarded more than $31.5 million to the law firms that worked on the case. (Here’s the story from the Fulton County Daily Report.) Class counsel Coughlin Stoia will share a percentage of the fees with co-counsel from Atlanta class action boutique Chitwood Harley Harnes. Two other plaintiffs firms also will share in the fees — Birmingham, Ala.-based Whatley Drake & Kallas and California firm Gergosian & Gralewski.

Class counsel, according to the Fulton County Daily Report, sought fees valued at 26.04 percent of the settlement — about $35,805,000 — as well as more than $7 million in expenses and interest. But Judge Hunt reduced the percentage from 26.04 percent to 21 percent. He also trimmed more than $4 million from the lawyers’ submitted expenses.

Here are some of the more interesting observations Hunt made along the way:

The judge wrote, “It further appears that a substantial majority of the work in this matter was performed by attorneys that tended to bill at higher rates while very little of the work was performed by associates with lower rates.” As an example, the judge noted that of 24,914.15 hours billed by Coughlin lawyers, only 1,411.74 were billed by the 11 associates assigned to the case whose hourly rates were $350 or less. “This Court would find it surprising if only six percent of the work performed in this matter was of the type that could be performed by lower-level associates and that assumes that a $350.00 rate could be considered a lower-level rate,” he wrote.
In disallowing more than $4 million in expenses, Hunt disallowed $93,960.67 for LexisNexis, Westlaw and Online Library Research. He wrote: “This Court is of the opinion that charging separately for use of a research sevice is akin to charging for the use of a case law reporter. That is, the research service is a tool, much like a computer or a pen, and this Court considers the use of such a service part of a firm’s overhead. . . . . Moreover, this Court is aware that many firms pay a flat rate to Lexis and Westlaw regardless of their usage, and class counsel cannot claim such flat rate payments as an out-of-pocket expense.”
Hunt also reduced Coughlin’s travel expense claims for 122 trips, 14 of them abroad. According to the judge’s own calculations, if Coughlin spent an estimated $6,000 each for overseas travel, it would also have spent an average of nearly $3,000 for each of its 108 domestic trips, including an estimated $1,365.95 per person per night. “This Court is not troubled by the apparent fact that Coughlin attorneys seek high comfort on their journeys,” Hunt wrote, “but neither should the class finance such a lifestyle. This Court finds that a client could reasonably expect to pay $300 per night for his attorney’s food and lodging on domestic trips, and that is the level at which this Court will reimburse Coughlin for its travel.”

The Fulton County Daily Report couldn’t reach attorney Martin D. Chitwood at Chitwood Harley nor Daniel S. Drosman at Couglin Stoia for comment.

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