The $2.3 billion in legal fees contemplated by the Texas tobacco settlement is both unprecedented and unconscionable. Unprecedented because the next largest legal fee in the history of the world is a mere "$0.3" billion, the real legal fee for the remarkable, fully litigated case that became a wonder of the legal world: Pennzoil v. Texaco. It is doubtful that a fee approaching $2.3 billion has ever been considered a realistic possibility on any case, regardless of risk or novelty, in the history of civil or criminal justice. Unconscionable because $2.3 billion for a case that never even went to trial, and which tracked work pioneered and litigated by other States, offends both the law and the moral senses. Read more [20MB PDF]