One Million Dollars a Month To Lawyers

There are times that it is apparent that the greed of some lawyers knows no bounds.  This Reuters article about Jefferson County, Alabama's bankruptcy proceedings just enrages me:

(Reuters) - Alabama's Jefferson County wants a federal judge to take a second look at a June 29 ruling favoring Wall Street creditors in order to clarify how the cash-strapped local government can pay $1 million a month in fees to its bankruptcy lawyers.

The county, which last November initiated the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy, said Judge Thomas Bennett's ruling clearly barred setting aside county revenues in reserve funds for estimated professional fees but did not forbid using the revenues for paying lawyers for completed work.

How many lawyers do they have working on this, that their professional fees come to one million dollars a month?  Even at $300/hour, that's 3333 hours worked in a month.  Even ten hour days, six days a week, means that there are more than 55 lawyers working on this.

You know the joke about the lawyer who shows up in Heaven, and St. Peter meets him at the pearly gates with a brass band playing.  The lawyer says, "I can't be the first lawyer to show up here."

St. Peter says, "No, but it isn't often that someone 200 years old arrives."

"I'm not 200 year old.  How did you figure that?"

"We added up all the hours you've billed."