Comedian Bill Cosby can no longer see very well, but he says he can easily see that his former attorneys gouged him for millions of dollars. The legendary entertainer is now suing to get his money back.
The man who used to be affectionately called “America’s Dad” has filed a petition Friday afternoon to reverse a judge’s arbitration award given to his former law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.
Cosby contests the fact that the firm was “unconscionable” in their actions as they charged him almost $9M in nine months before they quit defending him in 2016.
According to The Blast, the attorney in charge of Cosby’s case charged a total of $8,550,645.50 for 11,205 hours of work during the nine months they legally repped Cosby. The firm employed 28 attorneys in 5 cities to debunk the many accusers’ claims. This comes to an average of nearly $1M per month.
Cosby claims the lawyers took advantage of his blindness, which prevented him from reading the contract. Cosby also claims, the publication states, that the firm failed to explain the specific terms of the contract as it pertained to billing.
The firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan counters Cosby’s claims, saying:
“The amount at stake was monumental. Cosby retained Quinn to represent him in a criminal case which he faced the possibility of what would effectively be life imprisonment, along with the loss of his legacy and reputation. He also faced exposure to substantial and punitive damages in civil cases.” The firm added, “At one point three of his accusers demanded that Cosby establish a 100 Million dollar fund to pay settlements.”
Cosby is now serving a 3-to-10-year sentence in a Pennsylvania state prison after being convicted of raping former Temple University employee Andrea Constand in 2004. He is also accused of sexually assaulting dozens of other women, with some of them receiving large settlement payments from Cosby’s insurance company AIG.
Cosby, The Blast states, claims that “Quinn Emanuel’s staffing decisions and billing practices were egregious and resulted in fees that were totally and completely unconscionable.”
