Posted on 06/25/2002 1:00:26 PM PDT by Rodney King
Did adoption lawyer really work 44 hours in one day?
June 25, 2002
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER
Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine is investigating charges a lawyer routinely billed the state's child welfare agency for more than 24 hours' work a day on uncontested adoptions.
According to records obtained by Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy, Joyce Britton had a busy week in April 2001:
On Monday, April 9, she worked 34 hours. On Tuesday, she worked 44 hours. On Wednesday it was 29; 33 on Thursday, 25 on Friday, 42 on Saturday. On Sunday, she took it easy, with only 3.4 hours. Monday it was up to 18 and Tuesday it was 44. These are her hours alone, Murphy said. The sole practitioner's assistant bills separately.
Britton billed the agency $862,000 for fiscal years 2000 and 2001. The second-most-active attorney handling uncontested adoptions billed $285,000.
"It makes her look bad, but it's not bad," said Britton's attorney, George Collins.
He explained that Britton lists the hours she spends on each case, based in part on the dates certain court documents are executed.
"She didn't necessarily do the work at the time the bill shows," Collins said. "I agree that looks bad. The fact is she probably gets up at 6 and goes to bed at 10, and there isn't enough time to do all this. It may not be the best way, but it's honest."
If the records are accurate--Murphy said he got them from a Department of Children and Family Services employee--it wouldn't matter whether Britton did the work the previous week or the week before that. Just about every week is full of 20-plus-hour days, raising the same questions about whether she can work in her sleep or do two hours' work in an hour.
When attorneys spend an hour on work that may benefit four clients, they are not allowed to bill each of those clients for the hour, the American Bar Association says.
The bigger issue, Murphy said, is whether Britton's high-volume practice allows her to devote time to each case. Uncontested adoptions generally involve foster parents seeking to become a child's legal guardian. DCFS sometimes provides money if the child has special needs. Some attorneys challenge DCFS to provide a larger subsidy. Britton usually does not, Murphy said.
"We see that in many cases the adoptive parents, and hence the children, are not getting adequate subsidies," Murphy, whose office represents the children, wrote in a letter to DCFS director Jess McDonald last month.
"Ms. Britton will sometimes try to get them more--but more often not--if both sides agree," Collins said, noting the complaint started with Murphy, not with a client.
Britton is the most prominent African-American attorney handling adoptions, Collins said, adding some African-American foster parents seek her out.
Retired Sun-Times columnist Ray Coffey wrote about Britton in 1999, marveling at how she could pull in $671,825 in fiscal year 1998 --nearly half the entire DCFS budget for attorneys handling uncontested adoptions. At a rate of $150 an hour, Britton would have had to have worked 12 hours a day for 365 days to earn that.
At the time, DCFS officials said they would look at the system. Now attorneys must submit bills totaling their hours for a maximum of $1,500 per case.
DCFS attorney Cheryl Cesario said Devine's office launched an investigation in response to Murphy's questions. DCFS will take no action until that investigation is complete, she said.
If I spend an hour in the library researching an issue that applies to two clients, I'll bill 'em both. But I work for myself, not the public dole, and I explain it to my clients.
I hope he charges her for 44-hour days for her defense, too.
There's a good example of spin if you need it. "Yes she bills for 44 hours in a day but it's honest work"
I knew it before I even got that far. Nobody else would be that stupid. This is something only a Carol Mosley-Brown clone would do.
About 15 years ago there was one NY lawyer who specialized in bankruptcy cases; at one point he was handling both a bankrupt shipping line and a bankrupt department store. It turned out that a couple of businesses were creditors of both these bankrupt firms. The debtor's lawyer - since he gets paid right off the top - has to submit his time sheets to the court to justify his payment, so the creditors got to see the timesheets in both cases. For some of the same calendar days, this guy claimed to have put in about 11 hours on one of the bankrupt businesses and another 12 hours on the second bankrupt business, and the creditors were able to add the two together. The creditors petitioned the court to make this guy reveal what other clients he had at the same period because they expected that the timesheet in a third case might show that this lawyer had a whole new way of telling time. But the court rejected their motion and approved the lawyer's payment.
There was, when I was a law student, the story (or folklore) about one lawyer in NY who had to take a deposition in a case from a witness in Los Angeles, and for a lark he deliberately planned on getting dressed by midnight, NY time, reading the case files on the taxi to the airport, and on the airplane to LA, so he could bill for every minute, and continue studying the file through meals, right up to the deposition, and continue studying the papers in the case even after the deposition, so that, with the extra time zones and so forth, he could bill, just that once, for more than 24 hours in one calendar day.
Wow, you have really raised the bar for integrity! I would have thought the just thing to do would be to "split" the cost between them. What a fool I am. Guess that's why I'm an engineer not a lawyer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.