Last week, I took a principled stand not only for a survivor of Harvey Weinstein’s predatory sexual abuse but for all of the Weinstein survivors. What is right is always right regardless of the circumstances.
Law 360 reports, “Thomas P. Giuffra of Rheingold Giuffra Ruffo Plotkin & Hellman LLP, representing Weinstein accuser Alexandra Canosa, argued that Louisette Geiss, another accuser and co-chair of the unsecured creditors committee in The Weinstein Company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, was requesting ‘compensation for services rendered’ to steer money to her attorneys at Brown Rudnick LLP, Fegan Scott LLC and Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, despite the firms allegedly not doing anything to advance the interests of other creditors. Instead, Giuffra told the Delaware bankruptcy court Thursday, the law firms, which he collectively referred to as ‘Hagens Berman’, were seeking to recoup some of their costs from a lawsuit in which a Manhattan federal judge abruptly denied a proposed settlement and class certification in July 2020.”
“Hagens Berman is using one of its own clients as a ‘front’ for a motion obviously submitted on its own behalf to recoup legal fees and expenses that it incurred as a result largely of its failed class action,” Giuffra wrote in a scathing, 19-page declaration blasting Geiss’ application for compensation and fees as inappropriate. “Hagens Berman’s application is simply a grab for funds. It is essentially seeking a bonus for running up expenses in pursuing a class action that was doomed from the outset under the law and facts.”
As a trial lawyer, I am offended when a colleague or an entire law firm manipulates others or circumstances in order to line their own pockets. Weinstein survivors should be appropriately recompensed for their suffering and pain and that shouldn’t be diminished by greed or sleights of hand.
The creditors committee have incurred no obligations whatsoever to Hagens Berman for a penny of the expenses sought. All of the expenses were incurred by Hagens Berman as a result of its representation of its own clients for its own interests. If one were to continue the analysis and pretend that the committee actually incurred expenses as a result of the representation provided by Hagens Berman, the application would still fail.
I am confident justice will prevail in this matter. What’s right is right.
