Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Law Students Blogs -> Nuts & Boalts

Law Students

: Nuts & Boalts

Classless Action

I just received an e-mail notification regarding the Kashmiri case. For the uninitiated, this is the class action brought by a Boaltie against the UC for the fee increases that began in 2003. The allegations rested on a reliance theory (somewhere on the UC website someone said that fees will not be raised, but they were).

There are three subclasses: (1) Spring 2003 semester students at any UC school on the semester system; (2) Summer 2003 students at UCB and UCLA; (3) Professional students who enrolled prior to Dec. 16, 2002. The following are the damages per class:

Of that amount, the following will be deducted:

Plaintiffs have proposed that their attorneys be compensated for their five years of work on this litigation with a fee equal to 25% of the damages amounts for each of the three subclasses to be deducted from the damages awards to each subclass. Plaintiffs also propose that their attorneys be compensated a reasonable amount for the out-of-pocket expenses that counsel have incurred during the duration of this litigation. Expenses are approximately $100,000 as of June 1, 2008, and are expected to increase substantially before this litigation ends. Plaintiffs also propose to pay the eight class representatives a service award to compensate them for the time and risk involved in pursuing this lawsuit against the University. The proposed service payments total $80,000.

Count me as someone who thinks $7-10 million is excessive. So, I will object to the attorneys' fees. I will also give back to Boalt whatever I get from this disbursement (though I'm technically getting paid for being a member of subclass 2). I don't think current UC students and California residents should be saddled with this ridiculous judgment. No one's happy with education costs going up, but paying those who actually got several years dirt cheap legal education doesn't make things better.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on July 15, 2008 (boomark / email).