Bill Cosby Battling $1 Million In Monthly Legal Bills

Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby Battling $1 Million In Monthly Legal Bills

Even though he is currently incarcerated for alleged sexual assault, iconic actor/comedian/activist/producer Bill Cosby still has a host of legal issues to deal with. The latest one involves the exorbitant amount of money he’s reportedly spending in monthly legal bills—a whopping $1 million.

Bill Cosby is still fighting for his rights, specifically being billed for a million a month while he continues to serve out his prison sentence. According to reports, there is a current fee dispute between Cosby and one of the law firms hired to handle his legal problems, the dispute in question reveals that one L.A. firm (Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan) was billing Cosby $1 million in monthly fees leading up to his first sexual assault trial.

Bill Cosby Mugshot

Cosby is currently challenging a California arbitration award that upholds nearly $7 million of the $9.2 million billed by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan for nine months work. He also accused the firm of elder abuse in a recent petition filing, “egregious” billing practices, and of fraud for representing both him and the insurance company he was fighting in court, AIG, over his coverage.

Quinn Emanuel had been hired to represent Cosby in three lawsuits beginning in late 2015, eventually enlisting 28 lawyers working on 10 separate cases involving 14 women who accused him of sexual assault. Those lawyers were billed between $500 to $1,075 per hour.

Cosby paid the firm $2 million and AIG paid an additional $2.3 million. However, the arbitration panel this year upheld $6.7 million in fees, saddling Cosby with a bill of around $2.4 million. His new petition requests a review of that decision and a refund of the money he has paid.

Cosby said he never knew the scope of the firm’s work — in part because of his age and blindness —and the firm ended their relationship with Cosby in 2016. Over nine months of work, Quinn Emanuel said it racked up more than 11,000 hours of legal work, along with costs including $300,000 in online searches and $48,000 for a lawyer’s work reading two gossip novels and a book about the Playboy Mansion.

Quinn Emanuel also suggests that Cosby and his wife Camille, contributed to the rising legal fees, by insisting that the firm fight efforts to depose Camille in a Massachusetts defamation case. They claim they suggested she go and invoke marital privilege in declining to answer certain questions instead. That prolonged legal battle eventually cost The Cosbys $500,000, for over two days of deposition.

Cosby is also currently in a legal dispute with insurance company AIG for settling with some of his alleged sexual assault victims.

What are thoughts on Bill Cosby’s legal fees? Let us know in the comments!