Catherine Durham, professor of law at Elon University, spoke with the Associated Press about attorneys’ fees in the historic House v. NCAA antitrust settlement.
Elon University Professor of Law Catherine Dunham was recently quoted by the Associated Press, offering insight on the approval of over $475 million in attorneys’ fees in the historic House v. NCAA antitrust settlement.
The settlement, approved by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, marked a $2.6 billion cash distribution aimed at compensating athletes for their name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. Co-lead plaintiffs’ attorneys Steve Berman and Jeffrey Kessler initially sought 18.3%—about $475.2 million—with an additional $250 million contingent on future athlete benefits, potentially raising the total to roughly $725 million.
Dunham, whose research and teaching focus on gender-based employment discrimination, civil procedure and class action litigation, emphasized the importance of class certification, which Judge Wilkin granted in November 2023 meaning she thought the case had enough merit to proceed.
“If a law firm takes on a case like this where you have thousands of plaintiffs and how many depositions and documents, what that means is the law firm can’t do other work while they’re working on the case and they are taking on the risk they won’t get paid,” Dunham told the Associated Press. “If the case doesn’t certify as a class, they won’t get paid.”