Moscaret Consulting, Inc. specializes in attorney fee disputes. We are retained as a consultant, expert witness, and/or fee mediator by clients, law firms, and third-party payers involved in fee disputes. We review legal bills for reasonableness and analyze whether attorney billing practices are fair and proper. We are often retained by major law firms, including some of the largest law firms and best-known attorneys in California and the U.S.
Our principal, Kenneth Moscaret, Esq. (admitted to practice California, 1980), is one of the top experts in his field. As described by an industry association in 2008, "Mr. Moscaret is widely regarded as one of the nation's leading authorities on attorney fees."
Ken Moscaret gave attorney's fees expert testimony in 2008 in the huge Enron securities class action litigation in federal court in Houston. Lead plaintiff's counsel submitted a $700 million attorney fee request in that case. Ken Moscaret was the sole "lodestar" reasonable fee expert testifying in the Enron case about reasonable hourly rates and hours billed. Mr. Moscaret testified alongside several nationally-prominent law professors and retired federal circuit judges who were co-experts with him, including law professors from Columbia University Law School and Harvard Law School, and retired 3rd U.S. Circuit judge H. Lee Sarokin. Enron is the largest securities class action lawsuit in U.S. history, and one of the largest business lawsuits generally ever litigated in this country.
The U.S. District Court in Enron cited Mr. Moscaret's expert opinions. The court made a record-setting $700 million fee award (view here). The federal judge in Enron described Ken Moscaret as one of the "nationally prominent experts on fee awards" who was "highly qualified to testify about attorneys' fees and market rates." The court's published opinion was 209-pages long (view here).
The following major U.S. law firms are past clients and/or professional references for our firm. Partner names available upon request:
- Arnold & Porter
- Baker & Hostetler
- Covington & Burling
- Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
- Glaser Weil Fink Jacobs & Shapiro
- Hogan Lovells
- Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro
- Jones Day
- K&L Gates
- Kirkland & Ellis
- Latham & Watkins
- Littler Mendelson
- Loeb & Loeb
- Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps
- Manatt, Phelps & Phillips
- Mayer Brown
- McCarter & English
- McDermott Will & Emery
- Miller Barondess
- Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp
- Morgan, Lewis & Bockius
- Munger Tolles & Olson
- Musick Peeler & Garrett
- O'Melveny & Myers
- Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe
- Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker
- Pepper Hamilton
- Perkins Coie
- Reed Smith
- Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold
- Shartsis Friese
- Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton
- Wiley Rein
- Winston & Strawn
We also provide a litigation management consulting program for small and midsize companies and public entities that are litigating expensive lawsuits. In those consulting engagements, we work with clients and their outside counsel to help achieve increased litigation management efficiency and more predictable legal budgeting.
For more information about our expertise in attorney's fees, visit our firm's complete website www.FeeDispute.com. Below is an excerpt from the July 18, 2007 issue of the Los Angeles/San Francisco Daily Journal legal newspaper regarding Kenneth Moscaret's expert credentials:
© 2007 The Daily Journal Corporation. All rights reserved.
Cost Control Suffers Under County Counsel
Lawyers Ignore Ways to Limit Legal Bills, Audit Says
By Robert Iafolla
Daily Journal Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES — Lawyers in the Los Angeles County Counsel's Office often ignored procedures designed to limit its multimillion-dollar legal bills, according to a report of an internal county audit.
County lawyers frequently submitted case evaluation plans late, underestimated litigation costs, increased case budgets without supervisor review or approval, and failed to meet for round-table discussions or update cases on the County's risk-management computer system, according to the report.
The County Board of Supervisors commissioned the report in June 2006, after the total judgments and settlements paid spiked to $38.3 million, a 43 percent increase over the previous two-year average.
The County's auditor-controller conducted the audit and submitted the report to the Board in January. The Daily Journal obtained a redacted version of the report through public records requests.
In addition, the auditor-controller interviewed County Counsel staff, outside attorneys, third-party administrators and County risk management staff. An outside attorney who had not worked with the County, Kenneth Moscaret of Moscaret Consulting, evaluated litigation strategy and billing.
Not all of the report's findings reflected shortcomings. For example, the outside attorney found that County Counsel followed appropriate litigation strategy in five of the six cases reviewed and that the office saves money by keeping outside attorney billing rates below market value.
*above excerpt from article edited and condensed due to space limitations
