Solyndra’s Legal Team: Five Attorneys at $2,550 Per Hour
Lachlan Markay /
Solyndra has hired a team of five high-powered attorneys to help get it through its bankruptcy proceedings, according to documentation the company has filed in court (embedded below). Their firm, McDermott Will & Emery, also represented the company before it filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month.
Some of the attorneys who will represent Solyndra in bankruptcy court are as politically connected as the solar company itself. The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney provided some details from their impressive political resumes:
Former Massachusetts governor and Senate candidate William Weld is Solyndra’s newest lobbyist, according to the solar panel company’s latest filing in bankruptcy court.
Former Steny Hoyer aide David Ransom, a Weld colleague at McDermott Will & Emery is also on the brand new Solyndra account, helping the company deal with the investigation into how it got this government subsidy despite its bad business condition. Hoyer’s old chief of staff Andy Quinn is already a Solyndra lobbyist, as is Quinn’s colleague Steve Ham at McAllister & Quinn.
The other DC lawyer named by the Legal Times story where I found this is former John Glenn aide and Reagan Administration lawyer Stephen Ryan.
As one might expect, this sort of representation does not come cheap. All told, Solyndra’s team may bill up to $2,550 per hour, the Legal Times notes.
Five people with McDermott and their standard hourly rates are listed on the application: William Weld, a former Massachusetts governor and U.S. attorney who is of counsel in New York, at $825; Washington partner Stephen Ryan at $775; Washington partner David Ransom and Silicon Valley partner Eugene Litvinoff, both at $525; and Jon Decker, a senior adviser in Washington, at $425.
Here’s a copy of Solyndra’s court filing.
Correction: This post incorrectly described the members of Solyndra’s team as lobbyists. The post has been updated to account for that correction. Scribe regrets the error.