Colorado lawyer Jeffrey C Parsons of the Western Mining Action...

Colorado lawyer Jeffrey C Parsons of the Western Mining Action Project is one of the attorneys for the Hualapai Tribe, in the team led by Earthjustice. He also represented some of the plaintiffs in the Thacker Pass case. You may recall that BLM eventually won that war, but they did not win every battle.

The plaintiffs, in an appeal to the Ninth Circuit, got a decision that LAC could only dump waste on a part of their claim where there would otherwise be lithium to mine. So they had to prove there was lithium there (as I recall, they did it with geologist testimony and no actual drilling). Because they won this ruling against BLM, they are entitled to legal fees. Even BLM agrees to that, and is trying to negotiate the amount. And the fees don’t have to be allocated to just that one issue, because all the work they did leading up to it also counts.

How much is involved here? Well, they’re asking for US$740,000. About $12,000 of that would go to Parsons. A decision (or stipulated agreement with BLM) is expected by the end of this month, because the court wants to close the case before the end of the federal fiscal year.

When you’re supervising a project that involves attorneys billing $575 an hour, is $300 an hour too much for the CEO?