Value Billing For The Bankruptcy Professional?
Bloomberg has a story about $18.50 per minute legal services in some of the larger bankruptcies currently on file. For those as bad at math as me, that is over $1000 an hour. Nice work if you can get it. The story does point out that there is an avenue to object to unreasonable or unnecessary fees in the bankruptcy court and that it remains to be seen if these high fees are going to ultimately be paid at this point. We'll see.
But that leads me to an interesting question: does anyone have any specific experience with non-traditional or value fee models in the bankruptcy professional context? Value billing seems to be a relatively hot topic in the blogging community (and for good reason). Here are some good examples of proponents of reducing the significance of the billable hour, including Cravath, Swain & Moore, LLP's own presiding partner lobbying against removing the billable hour from fee formulas.
I know bankruptcy courts routinely approve applications to employ based on contingency fees or even blended rates or reduced hourly fees. But what about other non-traditional fee models that separate the billable hour from the value calculus? Do you have experience with bankruptcy court's approving fees outside the context of the billable hour or a straight forward contingency fee work? I'd be curious to know if anyone has case-specific experience or even ideas in a bankruptcy specific context.
