$80 Million in Legal Fees for GM

Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Jenner & Block, and Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn have filed their applications for employment as counsel to General Motors in the troubled automaker's Chapter 11 case. The filings show that GM has paid more than $80 million in fees to the three firms over the past six months.

As lead bankruptcy counsel to GM, Weil has the lion's share of the billings at more than $54 million accrued during that period. That's roughly equivalent to the $55 million that Weil billed bankrupt Lehman Brothers between September 2008 and January 2009.

Weil bankruptcy partners Stephen Karotkin, Harvey Miller, and Joseph Smolinsky appear on the filing. The firm states that partners advising GM are billing between $650 and $950 per hour with associates billing at hourly rates between $355 and $640. Weil was paid a $5.9 million retainer, part of which it intends to apply to "any outstanding amounts" that were "not processed through [Weil's] billing system" prior to the firm being retained as bankruptcy counsel.

In an addendum listing current and former firm clients, Weil revealed that only annual fees paid to the firm by Lehman Brothers, General Electric, Microsoft, Citigroup, AIG, and private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners exceeded 1 percent of the firm's annual gross revenue. According to Am Law 100 financial data, Weil had more than $1.2 billion in gross revenues for 2008. Full story