By David Thomas and Mike Scarcella

March 20 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to D.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com)

Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy entered a new, possibly final phase this week when the drugmaker filed a new $7.4 billion plan to resolve thousands of lawsuits that alleged its OxyContin pain medication caused a widespread opioid addiction crisis in the United States.

The complex bankruptcy has fueled several appeals, including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that upended an earlier proposed $6 billion settlement that also would have shielded Purdue's wealthy Sackler family owners from civil liability.

Along the way, Purdue's journey through the courts has generated sprawling fees for the army of attorneys and other professionals in the case, not least for the company's lead bankruptcy lawyers at Davis Polk & Wardwell.

The New York law firm alone has received or requested more than a quarter of a billion dollars in fees since the bankruptcy began in 2019, a review of court filings shows.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge in White Plains, New York has approved $246 million so far for the Davis Polk team, led by the firm's restructuring practice co-head Marshall Huebner. The firm has requested another $12.2 million for its work from September 2024 through January.

The fees include a 20% discount on the lawyers' standard rates, according to recent court records.

Huebner's current hourly rate is $2,645, Davis Polk said in a fee statement earlier this month. Associates at the firm reported hourly billing rates as high as $1,780, and several law clerks billed at $1,065. The statement, covering the month of January, included 54 lawyers and other hourly billers who spent a combined 1,775 hours on the case.

Huebner and a spokesperson for Davis Polk had no immediate comment. A spokesperson for Purdue Pharma did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Similarly high billing rates have become the norm in the largest corporate bankruptcies . A recent Reuters review of court filings in other cases showed that several firms are now charging top hourly rates above $2,500.

Purdue Pharma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2019 to address its debts, nearly all of which stemmed from thousands of lawsuits alleging that OxyContin helped kickstart an opioid epidemic that has caused more than half a million U.S. overdose deaths over two decades.

The new formal bankruptcy plan Purdue Pharma filed Tuesday fleshes out the settlement with new details about how the money will be allocated to states, local governments and individuals harmed by the crisis.

The company plans to begin soliciting votes and opt-in decisions from its creditors in May. After that, the plan would be submitted for final court approval.

-- Alan Dershowitz is no longer on the hook to pay more than $12,220 as a sanction for his limited work on an election-related lawsuit on behalf of failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week held that "of counsel" lawyers can be sanctioned for signing court pleadings that are frivolous and lack factual basis.

But the court said it would not apply that standard retroactively to Dershowitz, who had argued that he played only a nominal "of counsel" role in Lake’s failed lawsuit challenging the use of electronic voting machines.

-- U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan awarded $5.6 million in fees to attorneys at Labaton Keller Sucharow as part of a $19.5 million settlement in a securities class action against Barclays.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys said they spent more than 2,453 hours on the case. Barclays, represented by Sullivan & Cromwell, denied any wrongdoing. Barclays declined to comment, and a lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for one.

-- Credit Suisse was on the losing side in a Texas appeal and is on the hook now to pay $500,000 in legal fees to the lawyers for a former wealth advisor at the firm who fought the banking giant over deferred compensation and other matters tied to his departure from the firm.

The 5th Court of Appeals in a ruling said arbitrators did not exceed their power in awarding fees to Rogge Dunn Group. A spokesperson for Credit Suisse, now owned by UBS, declined to comment. A lawyer for the plaintiff did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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(Reporting by David Thomas)

((D.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com;))