Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is requesting a probe into the Department of Justice’s initiative to overhaul how attorneys are paid in large chapter 11 cases, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Starting Nov. 1, attorneys representing large corporate debtors in chapter 11 will be subject to additional disclosures and rules when it comes time to submit their legal fees for bankruptcy court approval. U.S. Trustee Program officials hope that the guidelines will help combat the perception that lawyers take advantage of a company’s crisis to charge expensive fees. Grassley in a letter yesterday asked Congress’s investigative arm, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, to review whether the new fee guidelines will “prevent excessive fees in the future and, if not, whether legislation is needed to address this problem.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/bankruptcy/2013/09/09/senator-requests-probe-of-ne…
For more information about the U.S. Trustee Program's fee guidelines, the recording of the abiLIVE webinar looking at the guidelines is available here:
http://cle.abi.org/product/abi-live-how-will-new-us-trustee-fee-guideli…