FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Legal Newsline) – A consultant whose work led to a $22 million class action settlement with Google is complaining that the lawyers who hired him also shortchanged him by several hundred thousand dollars.
Stephen Arpaia sued the law firm Foote Mielke in Palm Beach County in June, and the defendants recently removed the case to Florida federal court. At issue is a $310,000 payment from Google’s AdWords settlement in 2017.
That was much lower than what was requested by class action lawyers, and what they requested was much lower than what Arpaia felt he was owed.
“During the course of negotiations, Arpaia advised the Foote firm that his customary hourly fee was $1,000 per hour, however, when Arpaia was ultimately asked to submit time sheets for submission to the In Re: AdWords court, he did not modify the $750 an hour fee that was programmed into the time sheet template supplied by defendant.
“Under the terms of this contract, Defendant is under a duty to pay those fees irrespective of success or outcome of any ensuant litigation and irrespective of other fees incurred in pursuing the litigation.”
Arpaia’s work helped establish a proper class to be reimbursed after plaintiffs alleged Google dumped their advertising on low-quality websites without telling them it would happen.
Arpaia was hired by the Foote firm for consulting services and performed work for Schubert, Jonekheer & Koibe when it became lead counsel.
Arpaia says he spent more than 1,000 hours on the case in a two-year span. But he watched as what was submitted to the court for approval cut both his hourly fee and the amount of hours he worked, the lawsuit says.
What was submitted asked for Arpaia to be paid more than $516,000 – for 688.1 hours at $750 per.
But in September 2017, Arpaia received a check in the mail for only $310,000 for his work. He claims this violated his agreement with the Foote firm that said he would be paid the greater of 10% of attorneys fees ($607,500) or 5% of the first 50% of all attorneys fees, plus Arpaia’s lodestar ($667,950).
Or, he asks the court, he should be paid for all of his 1,089 hours at $750 per ($817,424).