Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1992 11:25:31 -0500
From: Craig Neidorf <
[email protected]>
Subject: File 2--Legal Costs, Attys, and why $60 doesn't go far
The readers should remember that my case was one of first instance.
In most court cases, the law or precedent is much more clear and
understood. Usually cases that go to court deal a lot with
determining the facts instead of determining the law.
Katten, Muchin, & Zavis bills Sheldon Zenner's time at $210/hour. In
addition to Zenner, they had Ken Kliebard (an associate) and two law
students working on my case over a 7 month period.
There were multiple court appearances including two arraignments and
the submission of all sorts of motions (for discovery, for release of
beneficial evidence, for all sorts of things).
There were all sorts of meetings -- with the government and with our
witnesses. There were flights to Atlanta to have meetings with Robert
Riggs and to St. Louis to meet with me (for a while I was not allowed
to leave the State other than for court appearances). There was a lot
of time spent in finding experts, interviewing them, and then learning
from what they had to say.
There was a vast abundance of evidence that had to be read, cataloged,
and understood (stacks of email printouts, Phrack issues, other
similar publications, and magazines about the telephone industry). My
attorneys had to learn about computers and Unix systems).
The fact that they first indicted me on one set of charges and then
turned around and re-indicted me on another set of charges added a lot
more time and money to my expenses. Every item of evidence that the
government photocopied for us cost tons of money (since they bill
photocopies at a very high rate (like $.15 per copy) and there were
thousands of pages.
The main problem was that the government had brought me up on charges
that had never been used before in a computer case like this one.
That meant there had to be a lot more research than perhaps would have
been ordinarily needed.
Finally there was the actual five full days of trial. This does not
imply the hours of 9 to 5, it was more like 5 am to 11pm. Hours like
these were not uncommon for Zenner during the entire 7 month period.
The bottom line here is that I am a bit outraged by the questions
posed by Mr. Moore of where the money was spent. I happen to know
that certain steps were taken to keep my bill a lot lower than it
might have been. I have learned for example that by referring a lot
of the work to the summer associates, KMZ was able to bill those hours
at a considerably lower rate. Furthermore, experts like John Nagle
and Dorothy Denning refused to accept payment for their testimony.
Ordinarially, expert witnesses like them would receive several
thousand dollars each + expenses in return for their testimony.
Don't you think my family and I scrutinized the bill ourselves to find
some errors that would bring the total down?
Finally, I feel that I received the absolute finest representation and
counseling from Sheldon Zenner. The legal expenses were checked and
re-checked by us and by him. I consider him a true friend and I trust
him without any hesitation or doubts whatsoever.
I'd rather checks be sent to Zenner because:
A. I don't want the money being sent to my name because I don't want a
stream of deposits in my bank accounts to irk IRS or anybody else.
B. I'd rather not net-broadcast my home address.
C. I tend to move around a lot since I live in rented housing and the
US Post Office is not the greatest at forwarding mail. The KMZ
address is the most reliable.
Mr. Moore writes that "The high price of legal help is arguably as
much of the problem as the reckless disregard for law and due process
demonstrated by the government." I don't disagree, but don't make me
responsible for the flaws in the system. Letters like yours victimize
me all over again.
Craig Neidorf
ps- The net total of donations based on my most recent public notice
stands at $60. $10 from one person, $20 from one person, and $30 from
one person. All of whom were people I generally knew before and were
not really among the 26,000 readers of CUD. People talk a good game,
but the money is not where their mouths are. The grand total of
donations received overall since day one (and excluding Kapor)
doesn't even hit the $1,000 mark.
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