HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (Legal Newsline) - A West Virginia tort reform organization is calling on lawmakers to investigate $141 million in fees being distributed to private lawyers involved in government opioid lawsuits after one attorney sued to collect referral fees for connecting lawyers with municipal officials.
The distribution of fees has triggered at least one lawsuit by an attorney who claims he is being shortchanged. Charleston attorney Harry F. Bell sued Morgan & Morgan, claiming he is owed $1.6 million under an agreement to split fees among three law firms that represented a number of West Virginia municipalities. Bell described his share as a “pittance of a referral fee.”
Referral fees are banned in most states unless a lawyer also performs significant work on a case, but they are allowed in West Virginia.
West Virginia Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse said legislators should determine why lawyers got $141 million out of $940 in settlements the state and municipalities obtained from opioid manufacturers and distributors.
“Paying $141 million to personal injury lawyers was always an outrageous concept and this follow-up litigation is further proof that many of these lawyers did next to nothing to receive millions of dollars in awarded settlement monies,” said Greg Thomas, WVCALA’s Executive Director, in a statement prompted by a Legal Newsline article about Bell’s lawsuit.
“The Legislature needs to hold hearings to find out exactly why lawyers were paid $141 million and get a full detailed account of these payments.”
Lawyers formed consortiums to pursue opioid lawsuits on behalf of thousands of state and local governments nationwide, often bringing in attorneys solely for their connections to officials who might hire them. In one curious example, an Ohio county paid more than $1 million in fees to two law firms that never appeared on any of the court filings, including one associated with a prominent Washington lobbyist whose firm represented multiple companies being sued by the county. Another lawyer paid in that case formerly held a position with a national association of county officials.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and WVCALA have feuded for months over the fees the state pays to outside counsel, with Morrisey calling them justified and WVCALA calling them excessive.
At 15%, the $141 million in fees awarded to outside counsel in West Virginia is about double the rate for lawyers involved in national opioid litigation. But those lawyers stand to make more than $6 billion in fees, second only to the $13 billion in fees many of the same firms shared after settling government tobacco litigation in the late 1990s.
Morrisey objected to the 15% fee that a court ultimately awarded to the plaintiff lawyers, which was nearly double the 7.7% fee the AG negotiated with outside counsel, said his Press Secretary, John Mangalonzo. A panel of judges overseeing opioid litigation nevertheless awarded the higher fees based upon the recommendation of the Common Benefit Fund Commissioner.