You may have heard yesterday about Judge Wilken approving an attorney’s fee award in O’Bannon that’s somewhere north of $40 million. It’s an interesting data point, I guess, especially when you consider that plaintiff’s counsel is risking that in their appeal to the Supreme Court, but, as usual, I find something else in her order that’s more so.
Evidently one of the arguments the NCAA made in its motion to reduce the award was that as schools are now paying cost of attendance stipends purely out of the goodness of their hearts, it made the litigation superfluous and thus meant the lawyers’ fees were excessive. (Call it the Seth Davis defense.)
Wilken wasn’t having any of that.
Wilken wrote that a change in the NCAA’s rules that now allows athletes to receive scholarships based not only on tuition, fees, room, board and books, but also the full cost of attendance does not reduce the impact of her ruling in the plaintiffs’ favor.
“The NCAA has failed to rebut the inference that Plaintiffs’ lawsuit and this Court’s order were factors in its decision to change its rules,” she wrote.
I’m shocked anyone might think Mark Emmert wouldn’t do the right thing on his own without any outside prodding. Shocked, I tell you.
Get The Picture 
Does the NCAA have ‘real’ attornies arguing their case? I mean, it’s not people like Patterson, McGarity, Hamilton, etc., or Emmert, is it? They did hire pros?
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No comment.
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When ever I hear about this case the famous British painting of two lawyers, one the plaintiffs and one the defendants, miking the same cow owned by the defendant. The defendant’s lawyers will fight to the last drop of their client’s blood.
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Sometimes, post ergo propter hoc is valid.
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