$146.7 Million Awarded to Lawyers in Google Privacy Class Action Case

A federal court in California has awarded three law firms $146.7 million in attorneys' fees for their work on a high-stakes privacy class action against Google LLC.

The firms, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, Susman Godfrey LLP, and Morgan & Morgan, convinced a jury last year that Google had violated the privacy rights of 98 million users who had turned off a privacy toggle in their account settings.

The toggle was supposed to stop Google from collecting user data across third-party apps, but the firms argued that Google continued to collect this data even after it was turned off. The jury agreed with them and awarded $440 million in damages against Google.

Judge Richard Seeborg of the US District Court for the Northern District of California said the fee award is 'extraordinary' but warranted by the 'exemplary performance of counsel'. He noted that the lawyers took on enormous risk by working on the case on a contingency basis, and that the attorneys' fees amount to one third of the total judgment against Google.