Robert Fishman of Shaw Fishman Glantz & Towbin LLC in Chicago, the attorney deciding how much lawyers and other professionals should get paid for shepherding Detroit through its record bankruptcy, gets his first batch of bills to review today, Bloomberg News reported. Fishman’s job, as the rare fee examiner to be appointed in a municipal bankruptcy, is to inspect and approve, or reject, bills that so far total about $19 million and may reach $60 million under contracts approved by the city. Fishman, a past president of the American Bankruptcy Institute, is the only fee examiner appointed in the recent spate of large municipal bankruptcies, including cases in California and Alabama. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes has instructed lawyers and other advisers to submit their first set of bills today, and to include details explaining what they did and how long it took, broken down into six-minute increments where necessary. The city has agreed to pay 85 percent of the monthly bills and withhold the rest while Fishman prepares a preliminary report about each firm.
