JPMorgan says Javice firms billed millions just for ‘attendance’
JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Charlie Javice’s “unconscionable” $74 million tab for legal fees included more than $5 million in charges for lawyers and other staff just for attending her fraud trial, even on days court wasn’t in session.
A previously sealed Delaware court filing released Monday offered the most detailed picture yet of JPMorgan’s claim that Javice, who was convicted in March of defrauding the largest US bank in a $175 million deal, abused a 2023 order requiring it to cover the costs of her defense.
JPMorgan is seeking to avoid $10.2 million in disputed charges and end the requirement that it pay future bills. Lawyers at Javice’s five law firms billed unnecessary work and inappropriate expenses under the mindset that “someone else is paying her bills,” according to the filing.
The dispute has raised the question of how much is too much for a top-flight criminal defense. Javice’s costs have been much higher than the $30 million in bills Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes amassed in her defense.
The bank focused much of its criticism on Javice’s two largest firms, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, which it said “have already received tens of millions, and seek millions more for patently unreasonable fees and expenses that constitute clear abuse.”
JPMorgan said it has “largely resolved” bills through July with Javice’s other firms, including the one for her planned appeal.
In a statement, a Quinn Emanuel spokesman said, “JPMorgan is trying to walk away from its contractual obligation to pay the remainder of Ms. Javice’s legal bills — all in hopes it can cut off her right to pursue her meritorious appeal.” Mintz didn’t immediately respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment.
The two large firms had already billed more than $22 million in the criminal case by August 2024, when Javice hired two smaller firms defend her in the upcoming trial, offering “no explanation” for why Quinn Emanuel and Mintz Levin couldn’t serve as lead trial counsel.
Quinn Emanuel’s fee’s “skyrocketed” after telling the court before trial that it anticipated transitioning its responsibilities to Mintz, JPMorgan argued. And the Mintz Levin lawyers were “peripheral and unnecessary, even during trial,” the bank said.
JPMorgan said that Javice had as many as 16 to 29 lawyers and other legal professionals in court for every day of her trial, billing an average of $360,000 a day during the six weeks of the trial. No more then four lawyers had speaking roles, and many of the bills were for “trial attendance alone,” JPMorgan said. “Javice’s counsel even improperly billed for trial ‘attendance’ on non-trial days.”
According to the bank, lawyers attending the trial charged a number of inappropriate expenses, the bank said. Included in 2,377 pages of receipts submitted for March were a Cookie Monster toddler’s toy, lavender and jasmine sachets, 57 hotel room upgrades at $300 a night and a $900 meal at Koloman, a highly rated New York restaurant, JPMorgan said.
A New York jury found Javice guilty of misleading JPMorgan into acquiring her student-finance startup, Frank, by creating millions of fake users for the site. She was sentenced in September to seven years in prison but is free on bail pending her appeal.
As part of her sentence, Javice was ordered to repay the legal fees JPMorgan covered. But even if that order is upheld, the bank is unlikely to ever get back more than a small fraction of the total amount. Javice is only required to pay 10% of her income in restitution after she leaves prison, and the order expires in 20 years.
The case is Javice v. JPMorgan, 2022-1179, Delaware Chancery Court (Wilmington).
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com