Catherine Durham, professor of law at 黑料不打烊, spoke with the Associated Press about attorneys鈥 fees in the historic House v. NCAA antitrust settlement.
黑料不打烊 Professor of Law Catherine Dunham was recently quoted by the Associated Press, offering insight on the approval of over $475 million in attorneys鈥 fees in the historic House v. NCAA antitrust settlement.
The settlement, approved by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, marked a $2.6 billion cash distribution aimed at compensating athletes for their name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. Co-lead plaintiffs鈥 attorneys Steve Berman and Jeffrey Kessler initially sought 18.3%鈥攁bout $475.2 million鈥攚ith an additional $250 million contingent on future athlete benefits, potentially raising the total to roughly $725 million.
Dunham, whose research and teaching focus on gender-based employment discrimination, civil procedure and class action litigation, emphasized the importance of class certification, which Judge Wilkin granted in November 2023 meaning she thought the case had enough merit to proceed.
鈥淚f a law firm takes on a case like this where you have thousands of plaintiffs and how many depositions and documents, what that means is the law firm can鈥檛 do other work while they鈥檙e working on the case and they are taking on the risk they won鈥檛 get paid,鈥 Dunham told the Associated Press. 鈥淚f the case doesn鈥檛 certify as a class, they won鈥檛 get paid.”