Wasn’t The WTC Insurance Fund Supposed To Help Avoid This?

Things you don’t want to have happen on a gorgeous summer weekend include opening up the Sunday Post to see how much you’re cashing in on 9/11:

One of the high-priced lawyers who have sucked $47 million out of the $1 billion World Trade Center insurance fund is infamous for defending companies that manufactured Agent Orange, a pregnancy drug linked to cancer, and defective breast implants.

James Tyrrell, a partner in the law firm Patton Boggs, is hailed in legal circles as the “master of disaster” and the “devil’s advocate.”

Another lawyer, Thomas Jones, serves simultaneously as secretary of the WTC Captive Insurance Co., which manages the $1 billion FEMA fund, and as partner in the Chicago-based McDermott Will & Emery, the fund’s legal counsel.

In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan last week, 9/11 responders blasted the Captive’s mounting expenses — $75 million so far, including $47 million on law firms — and Jones’ alleged “conflict of interest.”

They charged the city-run WTC Captive is a cash cow for its employees, consultants and lawyers, and has “squandered” money that should go to 10,000 cops, firefighters and other workers with illnesses blamed on toxic exposure at Ground Zero. It has paid just $45,000 to a carpenter who fell off a ladder.

Patton Boggs, based in Washington, D.C., commands up to $850-an-hour — one of the highest billing rates in the country, according to a National Law Journal survey.

Tyrell, who works out of the firm’s Newark office, would not discuss what he charges to lead the battle against Ground Zero responders, saying his firm’s contract with the WTC Captive has a “confidentiality clause.”

The city Law Department also refused to divulge the fees paid to the hired guns. Neither Tyrrell nor Patton Boggs has done work for the city before, officials said.

Documents obtained by The Post show that eight senior partners at McDermott, Will & Emery, including Thomas, can each bill the insurance fund $618 an hour. The partners first billed a “discounted” $550 an hour, but that fee was raised 6 percent in 2005, and 6 percent again last year.