Dec 19 (Reuters) - U.S. courts awarded hundreds of

millions of dollars in legal fees to class action lawyers and

other attorneys in 2024, with hundreds of millions more still

hanging in the balance in 2025.

Here are some of the largest awards and outstanding fee bids

heading into the new year.

- Two of the biggest attorney paydays of the year came in a

sprawling 12-year antitrust litigation over claims that health

insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield overcharged subscribers and

underpaid healthcare providers.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June declined to hear a challenge

to $667 million in fees awarded to lawyers at Boies Schiller

Flexner, Hausfeld and other law firms that secured a $2.7

billion antitrust settlement with the insurer in 2020.

Another set of plaintiffs lawyers, led by Joe Whatley and

Edith Kallas of Whatley Kallas, are set to request up to $700

million for their work on a separate $2.8 billion settlement

that Blue Cross reached in October.

A federal judge in Birmingham, Alabama tentatively approved

the $2.8 billion settlement earlier this month. Blue Cross

denied wrongdoing.

Whatley Kallas represented hospitals and other health care

providers in the cases. Boies Schiller and Hausfeld represented

commercial and individual subscribers.

- Winston & Strawn and Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro are seeking

more than $515 million in legal fees after negotiating a

landmark multibillion-dollar settlement with the National

Collegiate Athletic Association over pay restrictions for

student athletes.

The proposed settlement includes payments to former college

athletes worth about $2.7 billion and also includes provisions

for future athletes to be compensated. The future payments could

lead to another $200 million or more in additional legal fee

awards for Winston and Hagens Berman over the next 10 years.

The settlement would resolve antitrust lawsuits over

longstanding NCAA rules that prohibited payments to athletes,

including restrictions on compensation for competing, for the

commercial use of players' names, images and likenesses, and

payments tied to athletes' academic achievements.

- A federal judge in November said she would continue to set

aside more than half a billion dollars for a group of plaintiffs

law firms after 3M ( MMM ) agreed to pay $6.01 billion to settle

the largest mass tort litigation in U.S. history.

The court and the lawyers who worked on the case still have

to decide how to distribute about $540 million in legal fees.

Lawyers from more than 60 law firms said they spent 364,000

hours working on the case, including 16 trials.

3M ( MMM ) agreed to the settlement last August, resolving claims

that flaws with the company's earplugs caused hearing damage in

hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members and veterans. 3M ( MMM )

has said its earplugs are safe and effective and denied

allegations that they caused hearing loss.

- A Delaware state judge earlier this month awarded $345 million

to lawyers who successfully sued to void Tesla founder

Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package, but the final fate of the

award is still unsettled.

Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick last week cleared the way for

Musk and Tesla to file appeals to try to reinstate his pay

package. Tesla will also be able to appeal the $345 million fee

award, the largest ever in Delaware.

The law firms who spearheaded the lawsuit against Tesla -

Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, Andrews & Springer and

Friedman Oster & Tejtel - initially sought more than 29 million

Tesla shares, valued at billions of dollars, as a fee award.

McCormick rejected the request.

- Delaware's highest court in August upheld a $267 million fee

award for five law firms that obtained a $1 billion settlement

for Dell Technologies ( DELL ) shareholders.

The fee is one of the largest ever for U.S. shareholder

litigation. But the Delaware Supreme Court said it was not an

improper windfall to the law firms who represented the

plaintiffs - Labaton Keller Sucharow, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart &

Sullivan, Andrews & Springer, Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd and

Friedman Oster & Tejtel.

The plaintiffs alleged they were short-changed in a

controversial $23.9 billion transaction in 2018 that marked

Dell's return as a publicly traded company. Dell had denied

wrongdoing.

(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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