It really does take money to make money. So far, lawyers and other consultants have racked up $701 million in fees as they work to recover the $17.5 billion lost to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. That’s less than half of the $1.6 billion legal tab associated with the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy – the largest legal bill in history. But it’s a considerable sum that’s still growing as efforts to make Madoff investors whole drag on. To date, court-appointed trustee Irving Picard has collected $9.3 billion in cash and assets and repaid $5.4 billion of that to victims. The bulk of the fees associated with the case, $384 million, have been paid to Picard’s law firm, BakerHostetler. Another $292 million has been divided among dozens of other law firms, and $25 million went to “general administrative” costs. Funding these payouts is the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which collects dues from Wall Street firms that are used to restore lost assets to investors burned by bankruptcy or fraud. More on CNNMoney here.
