Given the importance and the complexity of the basic question, “Where did the money go?” it makes sense that the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse Coopers, primarily responsible for the task of tracking the money in the aftermath of the Petters Ponzi scheme and its collapse, has the disproportionate share of the most recent grants of fee applications. Several local law firms have also, of course, been deeply involved in sorting through the Petters wreckage and therefore a number of them are also the beneficiaries of six-figure awards, though less than half of PwC’s. The so-called “Ritchie Objectors,” a group of investors who have challenged the appointment of Receiver Doug Kelley at great length (a challenge now pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit) also challenge (also unsuccessfully) the grants of applications for fees.
Note to lawyers seeking reimbursement of fees by courts: describing your work as “research case law” is probably not going to be sufficient to permit reimbursement. (This is perilously close to “attention to file” as a description of legal services, which Minnesota Litigator noted at one time in a legal bill (not his own or his firm’s legal bill)).