Restitution Lawyer Wants Higher Fee

The law professor last month awarded $3.1 million for his work on the Swiss Bank Holocaust settlement now wants $300,000 more.
The professor, Burt Neuborne, said in court papers that he is owed interest for the two years he waited while the court weighed survivors’ objections to his fee request.
“Shock is the only way to describe this obscene effort at enrichment at a time when Holocaust survivors are dying in poverty,” said Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants.
He pointed out that the money Neuborne is seeking would be taken from the $1.25 billion settlement money earmarked for survivors. And he noted that survivors had opposed Neuborne’s request for payment because he had initially indicated that he was working pro bono.
Neuborne did not return calls to his office for comment.
In a letter to the federal judge who awarded Neuborne the $3.1 million, Sam Dubbin, a Maimi lawyer representing the Holocaust Survivors Foundation-USA, wrote that Neuborne’s requested $300,000 “constitutes almost half of the total amount of social service assistance allocated to Holocaust survivors in need in the United States.”