This is off topic, but I wanted to share with you this story I found about one of the widows of 9/11. I'm sure you know about the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund which was set up for the families of the victims. The lawyers the victims' families hired were not supposed to charge the families an outrageous fee for his services, but the lawyer one widow hired charged her $2M for his services.
She refused to pay him, I say good for her, and he filed a $2M suit against her in federal court. She hired the law firm of Simmons Jannace & Stagg to defend her against this lawsuit.
They moved to dismiss the suit and argued that the federal court had no jurisdiction over a lawyer collecting his fee. Since state court was already investigating the amount of the fee, the federal court abstained from exercising jurisdiction if or until the state court finishes the case.
According to my sources this is the first time the federal court decided that attorneys’ fee disputes arising out of the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund should be decided in the state courts.
This was just an interesting tidbit I picked up.
Dale L. Edwards
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