New York, NY - Lawyer Defends $4.1M Fee in Holocaust Case

New York, NY - Law professor Burt Neuborne says $4.1 million is a fair payment for his work distributing the $1.25 billion settlement he won from a Swiss banks over their World War II-era dealings. But many disagree with him, they pilloried him for billing Holocaust survivors at a rate of $700 an hour, that's when Mr. Neuborne went public with his arguments for the multimillion-dollar fee.

The New York University professor said that he would not withdraw his legal bill despite the outrage it has provoked from American Holocaust survivors who say his fee request would take too much from the settlement.
 
"This is money I've earned," Mr. Neuborne said. "I'll be damned if I'm going to be railroaded into giving it up because of a group trying to stampede the courts and ignore the law."
 
Just how much Mr. Neuborne receives for his seven years of work since the settlement is up to a magistrate-judge in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, James Orenstein, who is still hearing the case. Critics of the fee request say Mr. Neuborne gave the impression that he was doing the work pro bono and has inflated the number of hours he worked.