Mostly Plants

The WSJ Lawblog reports that Donald Trump is suing his former lawyer for malpractice in a dispute over fees.  His claim is that the lawyer committed malpractice by not counseling him to drop a count of his lawsuit on which the fees exceeded the damages.  At the end of the day, Trump won $2.04 million in damages, and $1.3 million in attorneys fees.  His actual fees were $1.47 million, and he’s refusing to pay $470,000.  That means that $300,000 of what the court awarded him to pay his lawyer, he’s keeping for himself.  I have trouble feeling sorry for him.

I have to say that the dispute between Donald Trump and the sort of lawyer who represents Donald Trump is one of the few in which I do not have a natural favorite.  Mostly, I say, let the rich people duke it out and I don’t care who comes out on top.  I have as much trouble feeling sorry for the lawyer who got $1 million in fees and thinks he’s coming up short.  Most American workers would think they had struck it rich if anybody paid them $1 million plus costs for a single project.

What struck me about the article, though, was how The Donald describes his case:

“Trump told the NYLJ that the law firm was preoccupied with fees throughout the case. ‘Ninety percent of the conversations I had with David Scharf were about legal fees, not the case,’ he said. ‘We won the case because I’m a great witness’”

So the moral of the story for the next public defender who gets no love for winning a case: don’t worry, it happens to rich lawyers too.  Then again, they at least get money for it.