Judge in Google privacy class action awards lawyers $147 million in legal fees

A US judge on Friday awarded nearly $147 million in legal fees to plaintiffs' lawyers who won a $425 million jury verdict against Alphabet's Google in a data privacy trial last year, while denying the company's bid for an order rejecting the jury's verdict.

Here are the details:

US District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco granted the fee request by law firms Boies Schiller Flexner, Susman Godfrey and ‌Morgan & Morgan over ⁠objections ⁠from some class members. A jury in September found Google liable for secretly collecting app activity data from millions of users who had disabled a tracking feature.


The law firms, which had sought billions of dollars in damages ​at trial, said they have devoted more than 49,670 hours to the litigation. They have called the verdict "historic" and said it was likely the largest in a data privacy class action that ​resulted in a trial verdict.

In his ruling on ⁠fees, Seeborg ‌said "this request is, without question, extraordinary, but it is warranted by the extraordinary ​nature of ​the case as well as by the exemplary performance of counsel." The ⁠plaintiffs' team included veteran litigator David Boies, who said he was ​billing at $2,730 per hour this year.

Seeborg said there is "some intuitive ​discomfort" based on the size of the fee award. "The lawyers are being handsomely rewarded for their success, even as each of the 98 million class members will walk away with less than $5," the judge wrote in Friday's order. "That is, however, a consequence of the policy choice to use the class action device to remedy widespread torts."

The plaintiffs said that only 269 class ‌members objected to the fee request, an indication they said showed support for the overall compensation amount.

Google has denied any wrongdoing and said it ​will appeal the verdict. ​The company has argued ⁠that the plaintiffs "presented no survey evidence, expert testimony, or other uniform evidence establishing that users were actually misled by Google's disclosures."

Seeborg in a separate order on Friday denied Google's request for a ​ruling summarily granting the company a win. The court also denied a request from the plaintiffs for a new trial on part of their lawsuit.

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