MANCHESTER, N.H. -- The trustee overseeing the bankruptcy of New Hampshire's largest utility wants a review of lawyers' fees in the case, including a $10,000 charge for a one-day tour of the Seabrook nuclear plant.
U.S. Trustee Virginia Greiman, in a filing with federal Bankruptcy Court, said payment of part of the $912,346 charged by the lawyer for unsecured creditors for five months of work should be withheld until questions of duplicate and unncessary work are cleared.
A hearing scheduled Friday in Bankruptcy Court may resolve some of the disputed charges, Greiman said.
Greiman is responsible for checking the validity of claims by attorneys involved in the bankruptcy reorganization of Public Service Company of New Hampshire.
She said she has objected to 17 of the requests by the 19 law firms that filed for financial compensation since Public Service filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 28.
'This is just one of our administrative responsibilities and we try to point out things that appear to be out of line,' Greiman said Thursday in a telephone interview from her Boston office.
The objections are a request for more information so that she can decide whether the fees are justified, Greiman said.
In her motion, Greiman wrote that the fee application submitted to the court by lawyers for the unsecured creditors - Kramer, Levin, Nessen, Kamin & Frankel - is inadequate.
'The applicant's claim of $912,346 would appear to be inordinate in light of the fact that the lead counsel to the debtor (Public Service) ... is claiming $863,861.
'Absent unusual circumstances, one would anticipate that the adequate and appropriate performance of duties on behalf of the (creditors) would consume far less time than lead bankruptcy counsel's responsibilities on behalf of (Public Service).'
Greiman cited five attorneys for the creditors committee who charged their full hourly rates to tour the Seabrook plant at a cost of $10,021.
'This indicates an overstaffing problem, which may be apparent on other days as well,' Greiman wrote.
In a response to Greiman's motion filed to the court on Wednesday, lawyers for the creditors committee did not address specific allegations. However, in support of their bill to Public Service's estate, they wrote:
'Aside from contingent fee arrangements, a client pays for the completion of the entire task, regardless of whether the attorneys achieve positive results, and regardless of whether the smaller tasks have identifiable benefits apart from the larger task.
'The question is not whether traveling time or intra-office conferences were productive, but whether these services were necessary to the completion of the larger task involved.'
Public Service Company, the first major utility to file for bankruptcy since the Depression, sought protection from its creditors under the crushing weight of its $2.1 billion investment in the completed but unlicesed Seabrook plant.
