Friday, November 20, 2009
News Georgia's 'water wars' lawyer to make $$$
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 7:49 PM
The lawyer hired by Gov. Sonny Perdue to file appeals, injunctions, motions and whatever else barristers do for Georgia in its ongoing "water war" with Florida and Alabama will be paid $855 an hour.
The AJC reports:
Seth Waxman, a former U.S. solicitor general in the Clinton administration, was tapped this week to replace Paul Clement, a King & Spalding attorney who withdrew because of a possible conflict of interest. Waxman's hourly rate is a 10 percent discount off his normal rate of $950 an hour, a spokesman for the governor's office said Friday.
Thanks for the discount, Mr. Waxman!
OK, $855 an hour. That's $14.25 a minute. If I charged $855 an hour, I could earn my monthly rent in just 49 minutes. I'd only have to put in seven hours of work at the office to buy this rip-roarin' jet ski. (Maybe an amphibious car?) If I wanted to purchase the entire Bob Ross DVD collection, I'd only have to toil for 48 minutes.
We are all in the wrong line of work.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
Comments (5)
Showing 1-5 of 5
This is the most important legal case in Georgia ... EVER. Pay this man whatever he wants ... but he better win or we'll all be paying BILLIONS.
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Even though it is a ridiculous hourly rate, the group of attorneys who specialize in arguing before the Supreme Court (mostly former Solicitors General) can command a massive premium because they are a very small and elite group. The water war is almost certain to end up in the Supreme Court at some point, and Waxman is one of the best in that forum.
Thomas, you certainly are in the wrong business. You should switch immediately. On Monday morning, you should call up A.G. Eric Holder, or better yet, President Obama directly (I'm sure you have both their numbers) and ask to be appointed Solicitor General of the United States. After racking up what will, I'm sure, be an impressive string of victories before the SCotUS, you can cash in and move to private practice and charge whatever hourly rate the market will bear. Simple! Will miss your blog posts though!
Slight problem, TL. It ain't a market what's setting this shyster's rate, it's an uncompetitive gummint contract.
The lawyers will take this gouged windfall and invest in Coke, then we will sell our water to Coke twenty times more cheaply than you or I can buy it. Then the lawyers will go to work for Coke, sue us and get the water forty times more cheaply than you or I can buy it. Then we'll be out of water and we can start over. For some reason I'm very thirsty all of a sudden--guess I'll pop a Coke.
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