As we previously reported, last year the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina trebled a jury verdict against DISH Network L.L.C. in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action, resulting in a $61 million damages award.  After months of post-trial motions (which were denied), the Court now recently ruled on class counsel’s request for attorneys’ fees, awarding $20.4 million.

Class counsel requested attorneys’ fees of 33.33% of the total judgment.  The Court found that a fee of $20,447,600, which is one-third of the approximately $61 million judgment, was reasonable.  According to the order, class counsel spent approximately 8,500 hours prosecuting the case and expended almost $500,000 of their own money.  The Court noted that “it takes skilled counsel to successfully manage an 18,000-plus member class action.  It takes a different set of highly developed skills to successfully achieve a jury verdict.”  The Court further noted that “Class Counsel achieved an excellent result on behalf of the class.”

A copy of the Court’s order can be found here.

We will continue to monitor the case for further developments.