In a significant development following a groundbreaking $2.8 billion settlement with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the law firms behind the case have filed a request for over $515 million in legal fees. The firms, Winston & Strawn and Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, submitted their petition on Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California.
This landmark settlement resolves three major lawsuits alleging that the NCAA violated U.S. antitrust laws by enforcing rules that prohibited schools from compensating student-athletes. The lawsuits addressed various issues, including the commercial use of athletes’ names, images, and likenesses, restrictions on payments for athletic services, and limitations on compensation linked to academic performance.
For the first time, the settlement permits schools to make direct payments to student-athletes, with projections indicating that approximately $20 billion will be distributed over the next decade under its terms. As ongoing payments to athletes unfold, plaintiffs’ lawyers could see an additional $200 million in fees over ten years, bringing their total compensation to around $750 million, according to an expert report.
This settlement is poised to be one of the largest recoveries in a class action lawsuit in U.S. history. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken is set to evaluate both the fairness of the fee request and the overall settlement during a hearing scheduled for April.
The NCAA has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has not yet commented on this latest development.
Lead attorneys Jeffrey Kessler of Winston & Strawn and Steve Berman of Hagens Berman emphasized that their fee request reflects the “transformative results” achieved for college athletes and the significant resources their firms invested in pursuing these claims. They noted that their request is “significantly less” than the typical 25% benchmark used by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for assessing fee awards in class action cases.
The requested fees are based on hourly rates that reach as high as $1,980 for Kessler. Winston & Strawn reported dedicating over 40,400 hours to these lawsuits, while Hagens Berman contributed more than 35,900 hours, with billing rates ranging from $800 to $975 for other partners.
The case is officially titled In re: College Athlete NIL Litigation, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Case No. 4:20-cv-03919-CW).
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