This $1,000 county court case involves an award of $185,000 in attorneys’ fees. It started as a Fair Debt Collection Act claim. It resulted in 2 trips to the Supreme Court. On the first trip, plaintiff’s counsel paid appellate counsels’ fees. The Court found for the plaintiff and remanded for a fee award. On remand, the trial court’s fee award included the appellate attorneys’ fees. The debt collector, MAB, argued those fees, paid by trial counsel, were unethical financial assistance to a client. This time, the Court made 3 findings: 1) MAB had standing to assert an ethical violation as a non-client; 2) trial counsels’ payment of appellate counsel fees was a permitted advance of litigation expenses and not financial assistance to a client; and 3) non-compliance with the Appeals Court’s fee application rules did not bar the fee award because they don’t apply to District Court appeals.
http://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2010/10SC852.pdf
http://www.cobar.org/opinions/opinion.cfm?opinionid=8531&courtid=2