Chief Judge Endorses the LAA Legal Bill Auditing Method LAABAM™!
The honorable Carla Craig, the (now former) Chief Judge of the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York had this to say during a hearing where the fee objector used a LAABAM™ report as the basis to contest a Loeb and Loeb LLP professional fee application of $432,068.00, and expenses of $6,502.71. [added comments below for clarity].
Page 35 of hearing transcript:
THE COURT:
22 Now, let me look back at the — again, I”m working
23 off of _________ [the one page summary from the forty nine page LAABAM report] breakdown in his objection because
24 that is, I think, a more useful way for me to see this than the
25 way that it’s been presented [by Loeb and Loeb LLP]. And that’s — I think the
1 lumping by category of work [ie, dissecting and reorganizing the bill entries into distinct legal billable matters]is something that is in accordance
2 with the United States Trustee’s guidelines. That is the way
3 that this is supposed to be presented, at least in part. You
4 know what I mean, it’s supposed to have — that type of a
5 breakdown is supposed to be provided. So that’s what I’m
6 looking at. It wasn’t provided by the applicant, so I’m
7 looking at __________ [the objector’s LAABAM] breakdown.
8 MR. HAWKINS [Loeb]: We did break it down in the various
9 sections of the applications.
10 ___________ [OBJECTOR]: Not legal matters. [Loeb did] Not [break it down into] legal [Matters]
11 It’s [Loeb and Loeb’s bill and presentation are] meant to cloud and confuse.