San Bernardino, Calif., has run up legal costs of more than $6 million since it declared bankruptcy in 2012, according to a senior city official, Reuters reported yesterday. San Bernardino, a city of 205,000 65 miles east of Los Angeles, declared bankruptcy in August 2012 with a $45 million budget deficit. Gary Saenz, the city’s attorney, told Reuters that so far the city has paid $6.16 million to its bankruptcy lawyers, the Santa Monica firm of Stradling, Yocca, Carlson & Rauth. The case has many more months to run, and experts believe the final legal fees could easily exceed $10 million. Last month, the judge overseeing the case set a May deadline for the city to produce a bankruptcy plan.
