Northern California District Court Judge William Alsup had already made it clear during the course of the Anthropic settlement that he opposed efforts by plaintiff’s counsel to enlist the help of other law firms — as publishers’ coordination counsel and authors’ coordination counsel. In a hearing while the settlement was awaiting approval, the judge had declared, “There will be not one penny paid to any lawyer except class counsel.” Nonetheless, earlier in December, the lawyers asked the court for $300 million from the settlement fund in fees, and proposed that a quarter of that would go to the various additional […]
