Dec 12 (Reuters) - Texas' appetite for litigation has

been keeping several law firms busy working for the state in

high-profile lawsuits against major U.S. companies.

Chicago-founded Keller Postman and Dallas-founded McKool

Smith billed the Texas attorney general's office a combined

$142.6 million last month for their work on the state's 2022

consumer privacy lawsuit against Facebook parent Meta Platforms ( META )

, documents show. The case led to a $1.4 billion

settlement with Meta in July.

McKool Smith and Keller Postman contracted with the state to

spearhead the lawsuit in exchange for a cut of a successful

recovery. The requested payout - $93.3 million for Keller

Postman and $42.6 million for McKool Smith - works out to an

average of $3,100 per hour for 42,600 hours the firms combined

said they invested in the case.

Zina Bash, a Keller Postman partner and former senior

counsel to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a statement

called the Meta accord the "largest settlement achievement by a

single state in U.S. history."

It isn't uncommon for states to hire private law firms to

handle large, complex cases using contingency contracts. In the

case of Texas, Paxton's office has signed outside counsel

contracts with at least 15 law firms since 2018, according to

state records.

Tapping attorneys from Mark Lanier's Lanier Law Firm and

Kelley Drye & Warren, Texas on Wednesday sued 3M, Corteva and

DuPont for allegedly concealing health and environmental risks

of toxic PFAS "forever chemicals."

Paxton said the state is "taking action to penalize these

companies and hold them accountable for deceiving Texans into

buying consumer products without vital information." The

companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

"We are honored to bring our expertise to this arena as

well," Lanier said in an email. Lawyers at Kelley Drye did not

immediately respond to a request for comment.

Texas's contracts with outside counsel are governed by state

law that protects against unreasonable fees, a spokesperson for

Paxton's office said.

Last month Texas turned to outside counsel to sue asset

managers BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street for allegedly

violating antitrust law and driving up energy prices through

climate activism. BlackRock and State Street have called the

lawsuit baseless. Vanguard did not respond to a request for

comment.

Contracts with Paxton's office show that Tony Buzbee's

Buzbee Law Firm and Cooper & Kirk stand to receive success fees

of up to $3,780 per hour or 10% of Texas' potential recovery in

the case.

Other firms with open contracts with the state include

Norton Rose Fulbright, which Texas hired in January 2022 for a

biometric privacy lawsuit against Alphabet's Google.

Like the settled case against Meta, the lawsuit claims Google

unlawfully collected the biometric privacy data of millions of

Texans without their consent. Google has denied wrongdoing.

Norton Rose Fulbright's 2022 agreement with Texas shows it

could collect as much as $3,780 an hour or 27% of any successful

recovery. Norton Rose partners representing the state did not

immediately respond to a request for comment.

--DaVita Inc ( DVA ) on Monday said in court papers that it has reached

a settlement in principle in a dispute over attorney fees with a

former company executive who blew the whistle on the company's

alleged violation of federal anti-kickback laws.

DaVita ( DVA ) in July paid $34.4 million to the U.S. government to

settle claims that it violated the False Claims Act by paying

kickbacks to doctors in exchange for referring their patients to

the company's dialysis centers. DaVita ( DVA ) made no admission of

liability.

Dennis Kogod, a DaVita ( DVA ) executive who sued the company under

the FCA's whistleblower provision, received an award of $6.37

million from the federal government, the Justice Department

said.

Kogod and his lawyers at Constantine Cannon also sought

$14.1 million in attorney fees from DaVita ( DVA ), arguing they are

entitled to fees after spending more than 30,000 hours

litigating the case.

DaVita's ( DVA ) lawyers at Sidley Austin countered that the

company's settlement only involved a "small subset" of Kogod's

claims. The company also said Kogod's fee demand "reflects a

lack of any reasonable billing judgment."

In their joint Tuesday filing, DaVita ( DVA ) and Kogod said they

were still finalizing the settlement terms but were expecting to

finish by Dec. 31. They asked U.S. District Judge Philip Brimmer

to pause the case proceedings until Jan. 10.

Lawyers for Kogod and DaVita ( DVA ) did not immediately respond to

requests for comment.

(Legal Fee Tracker is a weekly feature exploring attorney

compensation awards and disputes in class actions, bankruptcies

and other matters. Please send tips or suggestions to

[email protected].)

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