Dallas attorney Ralph Janvey was appointed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in February as the receiver in the Stanford Financial fraud.
The American Lawyer has some questions about how Janvey is running his operation:
The choice triggered some surprise in legal circles; Janvey had worked on only a handful of other receiverships, none close to the scope of Stanford.
But he billed like an old pro. For the first eight weeks of work, Janvey requested nearly $6 million for Baker Botts, his main outside firm, for the services of 101 attorneys, representing an eighth of the firm’s lawyers. He asked for nearly $2 million for Thompson & Knight, another firm he tapped, for some 66 timekeepers. Millions more were designated for firms in Canada, Switzerland, Britain, Antigua, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and for other professional services.
In August, Janvey requested another $7.6 million in fees for seven more weeks of work by 14 professional services firms. He has recovered about $81 million, meaning that the fees requested are equal to 34 percent of the recovery.