Broward Judge Oks $22.9 Million Payday for
'Superstar' Lawyer -- That's $1,050 an Hour

By Ian Katz
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
April 20, 2007

A judge Thursday ordered Motorola Inc. to pay $22.9 million to high-profile lawyer Willie Gary, who represented a defunct Fort Lauderdale company in a trade secrets suit against the cell-phone giant.

Circuit Judge Leroy Moe, ruling in his Fort Lauderdale courtroom, said Gary and his Stuart firm are owed for their work representing SPS Technologies Corp. SPS had claimed that Motorola stole its technology to track vehicles. Its suit ended in November in a mistrial.

"There are few lawyers who deserve the title of superstar, and one of them is Mr. Gary," Moe said in making his ruling. "He's pretty much in a category all his own."

However, Moe's assessment of a superstar's value is far less than Gary's.

Gary had asked for $93 million in legal fees, $3.1 million in costs and $100 million in restitution for SPS. Defense attorneys said Gary's request amounted to at least $11,000 an hour.

Moe did not address Gary's restitution request.

The hearing, and many of Moe's questions, focused on the issue of what a lawyer is worth. Motorola's lawyers cited testimony from experts giving estimates ranging from $450 to $750 per hour for star attorneys.

Gary told the court that his firm had worked on the case over five years and for no less than 19,000 hours. Based on that, Gary was asking for about $4,900 an hour.

Moe decided on $20 million in fees and $2.9 million in costs. That would put the fee for Gary and his firm at about $1,050 per hour.

Gary and Motorola's lead lawyer said they were pleased with the ruling, even while expressing disappointment.

"Obviously, we felt it could be a bit more, but we can live with the judge's ruling," Gary said. "I'm very, very pleased."

Moe's decision, Gary said, was a message to Motorola and corporate America "that you can't cheat and get away with it."

He said he will prepare for a retrial of SPS's case against Motorola and continue to pursue restitution for SPS.

New York lawyer Faith Gay, representing Motorola, called the ruling a "huge loss for Mr. Gary's firm" since the award was little more than 10 percent of what Gary had requested.

She said she would recommend to Motorola that it appeal Moe's ruling.

The SPS case against Motorola ended in a 3-3 hung jury and mistrial in November. Moe said Motorola's lawyers violated rules by letting its witnesses read court transcripts before they testified, which he said affected the trial's outcome.

Gary, 59, is known for several high-profile victories, his dramatic courtroom presentations and his unabashed luxurious lifestyle. He has won a $500 million verdict for a client against a Canadian funeral home chain, $240 million from Walt Disney Co., and $139 million in a dispute with Anheuser-Busch Cos.

His Web site has a page dedicated to the splendors of his private 32-seat Boeing 737, named Wings of Justice II.

In a closing argument that could rival the theatrics of most TV lawyers, Gary pounded his hand on a lectern and attacked Motorola's ethics. "They think that they are above the law," he shouted.

Thursday's hearing included as much sports jargon as legalese.

Both sides and the judge referred to Florida Atlantic University football coach Howard Schnellenberger's presence in the courtroom. Schnellenberger attended to support Gary, who spoke to FAU players a day earlier about the benefits of hard work and desire.

"I told him, `You came to my field, so I'm coming to yours,'" Schnellenberger said during a break. Gary spoke in his closing argument of wanting nothing more than "a level playing field."

Gay said members of Gary's legal team were heard talking in the courthouse hallway comparing themselves to sports stars such as New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez. "But even A-Rod strikes out sometimes," she said.

Motorola - Plaintiff Attorneys Awarded $22.9 Million

By John Pacenti
Daily Business Review
April 19, 2007
 

Circuit Judge Leroy Moe Thursday awarded the attorneys representing SPS Technologies $20 million in fees and $2.9 million in costs in a trade secrets case against Motorola that ended in a deadlocked jury last fall.

But Moe did not address the plaintiff’s request for a $100 million sanction against the Schaumburg, Ill.-based electronics giant, which was sought on the grounds that two Motorola witnesses violated Moe’s witness sequestration order and read
Willie Gary                                witness testimony prior to testifying.

The plaintiff attorney team, led by Stuart litigator Willie Gary, said it would ask the judge to clarify his ruling from the bench late Thursday afternoon.

Moe explained that the violation of his sequestration order went to the heart of the civil justice system, because the experts’ testimony was crucial to the outcome of the case. “What happened was a new experience for me and I was shocked,” he said when he ruled from the bench.

The two sides disagreed on whether Judge Moe might still take up the sanctions question.

New York attorney Faith Gay, who indicated she would appeal, called the judge’s bench ruling “a sweeping rejection of Willie Gary’s case.”

Gary said he would be filing the necessary paperwork asking Moe to clarify his position on sanctions, suggesting that Moe may simply have forgotten to issue his ruling on that.

He said he was “excited” that his client now can go forward in retrying the $10 billion trade secrets case.

The arguments Thursday continued with the same heated and contentious tenor that has colored the case.

“It’s down to money,” Moe said during Motorola’s closing arguments Thursday afternoon. “Even though we came into this world with nothing and we’re going out with nothing, it’s still a matter of assessing a reasonable fee.”

When Motorola attorney Bruce Zimet of Fort Lauderdale argued that Gary had only documented 175 billable hours since it was discovered during trial that two Motorola witnesses had violated Moe’s witness sequestration order, the judge cut him off.

“I’m not changing anything from my ruling from January,” Moe said. In a Jan. 12 ruling, Moe found "Motorola's multiple violations of the sequestration rule and this court’s orders were intentional, deliberate, blunt, willful and contumacious."

Moe repeated Thursday that the violation of his sequestration order by Motorola witnesses likely was the reason why last fall’s trial ended in a hung jury. "Testimony from the experts could very well be the tie-breaking factor," he said, interrupting Motorola's closing arguments in a minitrial on the plaintiff lawyers’ multimillion-dollar request for sanctions, attorney fees and costs.

On Thursday morning, Gary, who represents the former owners of now-defunct SPS Technologies in Fort Lauderdale, made an impassioned closing argument for a $100 million sanction and up to $93 million in fees and costs. Gary is seeking $24.5 million in fees for himself, based on an hourly rate of $11,000.

SPS sued Motorola, claiming the company stole its idea for a satellite vehicle-tracking device. During trial, Moe sequestered all witnesses. But two Motorola experts admitted they read trial testimony before taking the stand, in violation of the ruling. The case ended in deadlocked jury.

In Motorola’s closing, Gay argued that the record showed the violation had no effect on the jury outcome. She also accused Gary and his colleagues of being “greedy lawyers.”

She and her colleagues also noted that Gary and his team never asked for a mistrial after the violations of the sequestration order were discovered.

Gary and SPS claim, however, that the violation tainted five years of work in the case and caused a jury deadlock.

Gary, 59, engaged in his usual theatrics during his closing argument Thursday, calling the $193 million amount he is seeking "peanuts."

Dressed immaculately in a charcoal pinstriped suit, he stomped on the courtroom floor and pounded on the podium while demanding fairness and denouncing a corporate giant that thought it was above the law. Gary pointed out his friend, Florida Atlantic University head football coach Howard Schnellenberger, who was sitting in the gallery, to drive home his point about fair play.

Gary argued that Motorola knew that it was about to lose the trial and therefore passed witness testimony to its experts to help them. It knew that if it lost the case, damages could be trebled to $30 billion. "Now that's incentive to cheat," Gary said.

Juan Canto and Roberto La Rocca, the two former principals of SPS, sat in front of the plaintiff table. Gary said Motorola's argument that it made a harmless mistake — comparable to running a red light without causing injury — was wrong. "They did hit somebody," pointing to his clients. "They crashed."

Ironically, it was Motorola that had asked for the sequestration of witnesses. Later, its damages expert, Daniel McGavock, acknowledged that when he took the stand he had read the trial transcript. He was admonished by Judge Moe. The next day, Motorola trial witness Douglass Locke took the stand and acknowledged the same infraction.

Last week, Moe said during the fee hearing that “fees are going to the law firm. How they split them up is up to them.”

On Thursday, Gay emphasized that Moe commented several times during last fall’s trial that SPS did not have much of a case against Motorola. "Hardly a day goes by in which he didn't say you don't have a case," Gay argued.

Gay also said there is no case in Florida or in the nation in which such an enormous sanction and legal fee award was granted. She said case law also states any sanction should be bifurcated. Another lawyer on her team argued that previous fee awards came in cases that had reached final resolution, not in cases that were still unresolved.

Gary and his team documented more than 19,000 hours spent on the case. They also are asking for the amount to be tripled under the “Lodestar” calculation because of the complexity of the litigation. Moe, over Motorola’s objections, accepted affidavits of the plaintiff lawyers’ billable hours rather than actual time records.

Gay had argued that case law said affidavits are unacceptable in determining attorney fees as well as in applying the “Lodestar” calculation.

Gay mocked the repeated comparisons of Willie Gary to superstar athletes as a way to justify his fee request. Some of Gary’s experts had compared him to New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez.

"In regards to Alex Rodriguez, sometimes he strikes out," she said.


      Court Is Like a Carnival at Hearing for Lawyer Seeking
        $11,000 per Hour and Colleagues - Millions for Fees
 

By John Pacenti
Daily Business Review
New York Lawyer
April 12, 2007

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Broward Circuit Judge Leroy Moe seemed to tip his hand Wednesday during a hearing to consider Stuart litigator Willie Gary’s post-trial request for $100 million in sanctions and $93.1 million in attorney fees in a trade secrets case against electronics giant Motorola.

Moe said he did not want to hear from the scheduled long list of witnesses. “Fees are going to the law firm,” he said. “How they split them up is up to them.”

The eight-week trial in the $10 billion trade secrets case ended in a mistrial last fall when jurors deadlocked over whether Schaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola stole the idea for a satellite vehicle tracking device from now-defunct SPS Technologies of Fort Lauderdale. Gary’s firm represents the former owners of SPS.

Gary said the case ended in a mistrial because two witnesses for Motorola defied Judge Moe’s sequestration order and read plaintiff testimony before taking the stand.

“Motorola’s multiple violations of the sequestration rule and this court’s orders were intentional deliberate, blunt, willful and contumacious,” Judge Moe wrote in a Jan. 12 order setting the date for this week’s hearing.

Motorola’s attorneys have said the error, though regrettable, was not intentional and did not have an impact on the case’s outcome.

Gary proposed an hourly fee for himself of $11,000 for 2,200 hours of work or $24.5 million. Manuel Socias, Gary’s co-lead counsel, is asking for about $3.1 million. Paul Finizio of Finizio & Finizio in Fort Lauderdale is seeking $1.3 million.

In an interview Wednesday, Gary said Judge Moe already had determined that sanctions and fees were in order. He said Motorola’s violation of the judge’s sequestration order undid five years of work by the plaintiffs’ legal team. “If we had a fair shake, we wouldn’t be here asking for attorney fees,” Gary said.

In morninglong testimony Wednesday before Judge Moe, Fort Lauderdale plaintiff attorney Walter “Skip” Campbell, testifying for the plaintiff, said Gary is owed at least the $11,000 per hour he has requested because he is one of the top litigators in the country.

West Palm Beach plaintiff attorney Robert Montgomery testified that fees and sanctions should total $2 billion considering the nature of the infraction and that Motorola estimated the technology was worth $10 billion.

Fort Lauderdale litigator Bruce Rogow testified that Gary has a knack for putting together the right team of lawyers for each of his cases and coming up with unique strategies. “He has extraordinary instincts about cases,” Rogow testified. “He has extraordinary instincts about people.”

Campbell repeatedly compared Gary to the New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez. “Not every player is in the Rodriguez classification,” he said.

On cross-examination by Faith Gay of Quinn Emanuel in New York, Campbell said he did not know of any attorney paid $11,000 an hour for a case that ended in a hung jury. “I’m hoping Mr. Gary will be the first,” Campbell said.

Gary and his colleagues offered affidavits stating the number of hours they worked but did not present billing records.

Before the hearing resumed after lunch, Gay was overheard in the hallway referring to the affidavits as “bullshit.” In an interview, she said, “They have no separate admissible records of their time.”

The hearing on sanctions and attorney fees is expected to last three days.

On Wednesday, there was a carnival-like atmosphere in and out of Moe’s courtroom, as prominent attorneys stopped by to watch. One sightseer was Fort Lauderdale criminal lawyer Fred Haddad, who joked, “Hey, I make $11,000 per hour all the time, but I’m a criminal attorney.”

Campbell testified that the judge could use what is called the “Lodestar calculation” to increase the amount owed to SPS attorneys up to three times their actual billings — or $93.1 million — because of the complexity of the case.

“This is not a slip-and-fall case,” said Campbell, a partner at Krupnick Campbell Malone Buser Slama Hancock Liberman & McKee.

Gay, on cross examination, asked Campbell how he could justify the fees from the start of the case and not just the time of the violation of Moe’s sequestration order. Campbell replied that the whole case was tainted by the testimony, like pie poisoned with the last ingredient.

Campbell, a former Democratic state senator who lost a race for state attorney general last year, invoked the Bible several times in relation to Motorola’s witnesses violating Judge Moe’s order.

Two lawyers involved in the case, who did not want to be identified, said Judge Moe, during last year’s trial, gave Motorola’s lawyers a section from the biblical Book of Daniel concerning false testimony against a married woman named Susanna. He handed it out after the witnesses defied his order. One of the lawyers said Judge Moe was visibly upset that his biblical reading assignment wasn’t completed.

On the stand Wednesday, it was clear Campbell did his homework. He talked in detail about the Book of Daniel, which described witnesses who falsely testified against Susanna after she refused to give into their desires. They then tried to frame her for adultery. But Daniel split the witnesses up and it became apparent they were lying.

“The two old fellas who testified against old Susanna, they died because they lied,” intoned Campbell, who expressed dismay that many in courtroom seemed unfamiliar with the story. “It’s not in every Bible, but it’s in my Bible.”

Despite the huge money at stake in the post-trial motions and the certainty of an appeal, Gary predicted that Judge Moe will act fast. “I think he is going to rule at end of this [hearing],” Gary said.

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