The Boy Scouts of America has received a U.S. bankruptcy judge's approval to pay about $245 million in fees to lawyers and financial advisers who crafted the youth organization's $2.46 billion settlement of sex abuse claims, Reuters reported. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein in Wilmington, Del., late on Tuesday mostly approved final fee applications from more than two dozen law firms and advisers who worked on the bankruptcy case. The overall bankruptcy fees could end up closer to $275 million, based on outstanding requests for payment from other groups that participated in the bankruptcy. Judge Silverstein had decried the "staggering" legal fees racked up in the case in 2021, when the number crossed the $100 million threshold. White & Case, which served as lead counsel during the Boy Scouts' bankruptcy, received the highest fee award, at $71 million. Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones, which represented the official committee of abuse claimants, received $37.8 million, and Alvarez & Marsal, the Boy Scouts' financial adviser, received $19 million.
