And Those Are The Whitest Shoes You Can Buy

The Daily News learns that the MTA is using a law firm whose partners charge up to $540 an hour for strike-related litigation:

The MTA has paid a white-shoe law firm more than $560,000 to help fight its contract clash with transit workers – even though the agency has hundreds of its own lawyers and the state attorney general’s office on its side.
The Proskauer Rose law firm has billed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority up to $540 an hour for its talent, documents obtained by the Daily News reveal.

And the tab is growing. The $560,000 covers legal battles and maneuvers from November through January, but not the past four months.

. . .

MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said Proskauer Rose provided crucial support throughout, preparing papers, doing research and making in-court arguments.

“They are considered, to my knowledge, to be one of the best in the country in what they do as far as labor law,” Kelly said.

The MTA and its Transit Authority both have labor relations and legal departments with a combined staff of more than 500, many of them lawyers. Kelly said strike-related litigation is not their expertise. He said the union is to blame for the legal bills.

“All of this money that was spent was spent as a result of the illegal actions and rhetoric that the union took part in,” he said. “Do we wish we didn’t have to spend it? Absolutely. But it was precipitated by the actions of the union.”

. . .

Proskauer Rose partners Neil Abramson and David Zurndorfer charged the highest rate, $540 an hour, according to documents provided by the MTA.

Others charged between $176 and $420 an hour, according to MTA documents, which say that the firm provided the authority a discount from its usual fees. [Emph. added for obvious in-text sarcastic commentary]