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Following a recent Supreme Court victory, lawyers for college athletes are calling on the NCAA to repay them $3.5 million after spending almost 3,000 hours on the high court case fighting the organization’s education-related pay and benefit caps, Law360 has reported.
If the lawyers are awarded the $3.5 million, it would bring the total legal fees in the case to $37.6 million.
In February 2020, Winston & Strawn LLP, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, and Pearson Simon & Warshaw LLP were awarded $33 million for winning a California bench trial that blocked the NCAA from capping benefits under its amateurism rules, Law360 reported.
Then, in September, the Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction and awarded the firms $1.1 million. Now, the case has been closed by a Supreme Court judgement that sides with the athletes, saying that the NCAA should not get special treatment under antitrust law.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the opinion, wrote that the lower courts properly applied antitrust law to the NCAA by striking down the organization’s limits on student benefits, which include reimbursements for computers and musical instruments, free tutoring, internship stipends, and cash academic achievement awards.
Although the judgement only narrowly changes the rules for how college athletes can be compensated, it could pave the way for much more sweeping changes to college sports in the future.
Winston & Strawn, which took a lead role in the lawsuit, would get the majority of the legal fees, at $3 million for the nearly 3,000 hours its attorneys said they spent on the high court case. Hagens Berman is asking for $355,000 and Pearson Simon wants $153,000.
“Winston & Strawn attorneys have been intensely involved, and took a lead role, in all aspects of litigating defendants’ appeal of the Ninth Circuit’s merits decision to the Supreme Court,” Winston & Strawn co-executive Chairman Jeffrey L. Kessler wrote.
“Each aspect of this appellate work served an important role in ultimately securing from the Supreme Court a unanimous decision affirming the Ninth Circuit’s decision in its entirety.”
Steve Berman of Hagens Berman told Law360 that the request is “pretty straightforward.”
What do you think about the possibility of student athletes getting paid? Let us know in the comments section!
The athletes are represented by Jeffrey L. Kessler, David G. Feher, David L. Greenspan, Linda T. Coberly and Jeanifer E. Parsigian of Winston & Strawn LLP; Steve W. Berman, Craig R. Spiegel and Emilee N. Sisco of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP; and Bruce L. Simon and Benjamin E. Shiftan of Pearson Simon & Warshaw LLP.
The NCAA is represented in-house by Donald M. Remy and Scott Bearby and by Seth Waxman, Leon B. Greenfield, Daniel S. Volchok, David M. Lehn, Derek A. Woodman, Ruth E. Vinson and Spencer L. Todd of WilmerHale; Jeffrey Mishkin and Karen Hoffman Lent of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP; and Beth Wilkinson and Rakesh N. Kilaru of Wilkinson Stekloff LLP.
The NCAA High Court Class Action Lawsuits are National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston et al., Case No. 20-512, and American Athletic Conference et al. v. Alston et al., Case No. 20-520, in the Supreme Court of the United States.
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