BEFORE TRIAL: In One Year UMich Spent $648,380 on 12 Lawyers. Acc’d Male Spent $110K on 1 Lawyer. Male is Winning.
When a federal judge explained last month why he ordered the University of Michigan’s president to appear for settlement discussions in a Title IX lawsuit by an accused student, he blasted the taxpayer-funded institution for wasting time and money by fighting his order. Its decision to change its disputed sexual misconduct policy in the middle of litigation – without even telling the accused student and his lawyer – showed the university’s contempt for the orderly resolution of the case, Senior U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow wrote to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Judge Tarnow seized on one fact in particular: UMich had hired three different law firms (in addition to paying its general counsel) to represent it throughout the case, which has yet to go to trial. The three law firms billed the university $648,380 for just over a year of work on the lawsuit. By comparison, they are facing off against a single lawyer, Deborah Gordon, who has requested just under $110,000 in attorney fees for about 10 months of work for the accused student. (She said UMich called that sum “excessive.”)
“This is shocking,” said Gordon, the attorney suing UM. “The case has only been active for about a year. There has been no discovery — depositions, requests to produce documents and the like — and of course, no trial.” … At last count the University had 12 lawyers with appearances in this case. Apparently they need an army of lawyers from around the country to defend their actions that have now been held to be unconstitutional.”
“Instead of reading the established case law and acting responsibly, the University has been defiant,” Gordon said. “This bill to the taxpayers is the unfortunate result. I can only imagine what they spent on Doe v Baum, a case they resoundingly lost. “The (Board of Regents) should take control of this and demand accountability for the costs and the results from their very highly paid corporate lawyers.”
thecollegefix-Greg Piper mlive-Gus Burns
