Aug 1 (Reuters) - Two private law firms that helped

Texas ink a $1.4 billion biometric privacy settlement with

Facebook parent Meta Platforms ( META ) this week could wind up

with more than $300 million in combined legal fees for their

work on the case, according to contracts they signed with the

state.

The Texas attorney general's office hired Chicago-founded

Keller Postman and Dallas-founded McKool Smith to sue Meta in

2022, agreeing to two paths for their eventual payment. One

option grants each firm 11% of the recovery, which works out to

about $154 million apiece from the settlement. The other

provides for them be paid by the hour, with individual lawyer

rates ranging up to $945 per hour, but with the total multiplied

by four.

The firms will receive whatever option produces the smaller

sum, according to the contracts, so they could not collect more

than the 11% contingency fee. They have not disclosed their

hours.

Reuters obtained the contracts through a records request.

Keller Postman and McKool Smith must submit a final written

statement detailing their fees and expenses within 60 days of

the Meta settlement being "fully executed."

Zina Bash, a Keller Postman partner and former senior

counsel to Texas' Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton who was

lead counsel in the Meta case, said in an email that her firm

faced "an aggressive defendant with limitless resources and an

appetite for challenging every conceivable aspect of our case."

"Our team spent countless hours and advanced millions of

dollars to help bring this momentous settlement to fruition,"

she said.

Asked about its fee share, McKool Smith in a statement said

it was proud of its work "to secure this historic result."

A spokesperson for the Texas attorney general did not

immediately respond to a request for comment on the legal fees.

Texas sued Facebook in 2022, accusing the social media

platform of capturing biometric information "billions of times"

from photos and videos that users uploaded to the social media

platform as part of a free, discontinued feature called "Tag

Suggestions."

It was the first lawsuit the state had brought under its

2009 biometric privacy law, according to law firms that tracked

the litigation. The law provides for damages of up to $25,000

per violation.

Meta denied any wrongdoing. A spokesperson for the social

media platform said Tuesday it was pleased to resolve the matter

and looks forward to "exploring future opportunities to deepen

our business investments in Texas, including potentially

developing data centers."

A Meta spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request

for comment on the law firms' fees. The company was represented

by law firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Mayer Brown.

Texas is separately waging a lawsuit against Alphabet's

Google that accuses the company of violating the

state's biometric law. Google has denied wrongdoing. The state

is represented by a team of attorneys from Norton Rose Fulbright

in that case.

The Texas attorney general has active outside counsel

contracts with at least 10 other law firms, according to its

website.

It has become relatively common for attorneys general to

contract with private law firms, especially in technically

complex lawsuits like privacy and cybersecurity cases, said

Ashley Taylor, a partner and co-leader of Troutman Pepper's

state attorneys general practice.

"It's a very consistent trend line over a 20-year period,"

Taylor said.

-- In other legal fee news, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of

Appeals on Monday rejected a $78 million legal fee award for

plaintiffs' lawyers in a $350 million class action settlement

with T-Mobile.

The fee award amounted to a "windfall" for the three class

firms -- Stueve Siegel Hanson, Hausfeld and Keller Rohrback --

the panel found.

The award would have provided $7,000 to $9,500 an hour for

the lawyers' time, "which we think no reasonable class member

would willingly pay to an attorney to help resolve this claim,"

the panel said.

-- U.S. law firms Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and Winston &

Strawn could earn more than $515 million in fees from a $2.7

billion deal with the National Collegiate Athletic Association

over rules against paying student athletes.

The settlement was presented to a U.S. judge on Friday, and

could lead to hundreds of thousands of current and former

students receiving payments tied to their athletic service.

Hagens Berman and Winston & Strawn could also apply for more

fees in the future, based on a percentage of the pool of money

that schools anticipate using to pay athletes. Those additional

fees could be worth tens of millions of dollars.

(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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