Colorado Attorney General Blasts Law Firm for Taking Too Much Money for Doing Too Little

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published August 02, 2014

By Author - LawCrossing

This one has some kind of poetic justice that fails to meet the eye. The fact is that a Denver law firm recently helped the Colorado Attorney General's office to settle a class-action against another law firm, Aronowitz & Mecklenburg. Now the Colorado Attorney General John Suthers says this law firm charged too much to bring that law firm to heels.

Allen & Vellone represented the Attorney General's office in accusing Aronowitz & Mecklenburg for charging unduly high and undeserved fees from their clients. Now the Attorney General's office is accusing Allen & Vellone of charging unduly high and undeserved fees.

While Allen & Vellone wants to collect its legal fees of $875,000 in bringing about the $13 million settlement, the Colorado Attorney General's office feels such fees are undeserved as Allen & Vellone merely piggybacked on the results of a two-year probe by state authorities into the foreclosure practices of Aronowitz & Mecklenburg. This perception of the Attorney General's office seems to be there regardless of the fact that it was the duty of the state authorities to conduct such a probe and they were being paid to do their job.

The Attorney General's office is so incensed at the outrageous (to them) fees, that they have already made a filing in the Denver district court where the class action is being heard and Denver Post reported the filing mentioning the AG claiming that the law firm's fee "victimizes these homeowners again."
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Allen & Vellone, however, argues cogently that attorney fees are a separate component of the settlement and reduction of the fees would only result in more money in the pockets of Aronowitz and not in the pockets of homeowners. In its response to the filing by the Attorney General's office, the law firm said "The attorney general is laboring under the misapprehension that (Allen & Vellone) piggybacked on his office's work. Not true." It further said, "The attorney general's position does nothing to advance the public interest."

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