Private Lawyers on U.S. Payroll at $285 an Hour

Private lawyers, some charging as much as $285 an hour, have collected at least $50 million from the federal government in the last two years, the National Law Journal says.

The report in the journal’s Monday editions said that hiring of private lawyers to represent federal agencies is commonplace even though the government has 17,000 lawyers on its payroll. The average fee paid to non-government lawyers by nearly all federal agencies exceeded $100 an hour, the report said.

The publication said documents released under the Freedom of Information Act showed major law firms have been paid high commercial rates to represent agencies facing employment discrimination charges, to handle disputes with government contractors and to assist in bargaining with federal workers’ unions.

The journal cited one case in which a New York law firm was paid $285 an hour to represent the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. In another example, a different New York firm was paid $205 an hour by the comptroller of the currency to challenge rent charged by a private developer for the agency’s office space in the nation’s capital.