August 31, 2004

On August 9 Ted Frank posted on the case of Illinois lawyer Joseph Dowd, who insisted on collecting a six-digit "referral fee" from Mary Corcoran although the underlying litigation had been sufficiently unsuccessful that the prominent firm of Corboy & Demetrio, which handled the case, declined to charge a fee at all. (Prof. Steven Lubet wrote the case up in American Lawyer). This weekend the New York Times's Adam Liptak filed a lengthy report on the case, with various additional details including a new wrinkle: apparently it was lawyer Dowd who first approached the widow Corcoran, at Harpoon Louie's restaurant. Mr. Dowd, whose role in the case was basically to pick up the phone and call the highly regarded Corboy firm, "is not satisfied with the $140,000 the court awarded him. He has filed a new suit for the interest that sum would have earned had he received it sooner."