MIAMI — Dozens of attorneys who attained a landmark $1.1 billion wrongful death settlement in the Surfside condominium calamity learned their cut of the class-action case on Monday. It won’t be as much as they had hoped to receive from a Miami-Dade judge.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman awarded attorneys’ fees of $65 million — about two-thirds of the $100 million lawyers had requested before the settlement was approved in June. In addition, Hanzman granted an extra $6.5 million in fees to lawyers who participated in his recent review of victims’ damage claims in the collapse of Champlain Towers South.
Some relatives of the 98 people who died when the building tumbled down on June 24, 2021 said that while their lawyers did an excellent job, they deserved less because more of the damages should go to the victims. Hanzman countered that the attorneys took a “substantial risk” because he had warned them at the outset that they would have to work for free and may receive compensation at their hourly rate only if they recovered significant damages — an unknown quest.
