Missing the point about out-of-control fees and expenses.

See this story about a court disallowing some over-the-top expenses (here), especially the last three paragraphs.  Hat tip to Prof. Jessica Gabel for sending me the link to that article.

My take:  orders to show cause can be embarrassing.  Being the focus of a story about one's out-of-control expenses is always embarrassing.

Maybe the speed of law practice is such that it makes it difficult for those lawyers submitting fee apps to a court from reading the line-by-line detail of each bill, but scrimping on time reading attachments that get filed with a court is probably not the best place to save that precious time.  I would hope that the same billing judgment that should operate when sending bills to a client would also apply when submitting fees and expenses to a court.

I wrote a couple of articles about fees and expenses:  see here and here. The latter piece includes a long discussion about the book Professional Fees in Corporate Bankruptcies, by Professors Lynn LoPucki & Joseph Doherty.  I agreed with a significant portion of what LoPucki & Doherty said in the book.  (I disagreed with some other parts, but then, no book's perfect.)  The book is a good read:  useful and clear, with some striking discussions about their data.

Bottom line about this news story that started my post:  not everything is billable.  Not by a long shot.  And until lawyers return to the days where they understand that concept, there will be more stories like the one in law.com.