Paula Jones’ First Lawyers Seek $875,000

Paula Corbin Jones’ original legal team told a federal judge Friday that their former client owes them nearly $875,000, $25,000 more than the settlement she is due from President Clinton.

Joseph Cammarata and Gilbert Davis said U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright promised them reasonable attorney’s fees “for their zealous and effective representation” in Jones’ sexual harassment lawsuit against the president.

Their bill totals $874,571.36 and includes time charged for calls to “K. Starr.”

Cammarata acknowledged this year that he and Davis consulted Kenneth W. Starr about presidential immunity in the months before Starr was named Whitewater special prosecutor. The lawyers also charged for talking with reporters.

Cammarata and Davis took Jones’ case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1997 that Clinton was not immune from civil lawsuits while holding office.

The pair bowed out last summer after Jones rejected a settlement that included $700,000 and a vague apology from the president. Shortly after leaving the case, they filed an $800,000 lien against Jones for the work they had done before July 31, 1997.

Last month, Jones, with new lawyers, accepted an $850,000 settlement with no apology and no admission of wrongdoing, though she said that was her major goal when she filed her lawsuit in 1994.

Cammarata and Davis said on Friday that their bill eventually ran to more than the amount of the settlement.

“The amount of the attorney’s fee awarded to counsel is not limited to the amount of the compromise or settlement” under Arkansas law, the lawyers said.

Jones claimed that Clinton exposed himself to her in a Little Rock hotel room in 1991 when he was Arkansas governor and she was a state employee. Clinton denied the allegation.

The motion Friday said Jones agreed to pay the attorneys $250 an hour. Cammarata billed for 2,074 hours in the 3 1/2-year case and Davis 1,367. The balance was billed to various assistants.

The lawyers also claimed expenses of $29,589.26 and said $27.25 had been paid.

Wright dismissed Jones’ lawsuit in April, ruling that even if the boorish behavior she claimed were true, she had failed to prove that Clinton had hindered her job advancement or created a hostile work environment.

The lawsuit, which led to revelations that Clinton had an affair with former White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky, came to an end when the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Jones’ appeal after she agreed to the settlement.