Adds comment from school district in paragraph 22

By David Thomas and Mike Scarcella

May 8 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to D.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com)

Apple and Amazon have asked for a combined $223,000 in sanctions against a prominent class action law firm, accusing it of dragging out litigation over the price of iPhones and iPads after the initial plaintiff in the case sought to drop out.

U.S. District Judge Kymberly Evanson in Seattle last month said the companies could ask to recover legal fees from Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro for failing to immediately disclose that its client wanted out of the case.

Hagens Berman "needlessly prolonged this litigation and required considerable judicial resources," Evanson said.

The companies said in their fee request on Friday that their legal teams worked more than 350 hours on motions relating to seeking information about the plaintiff.

Spokespeople for Hagens Berman, Apple and Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The lawsuit, which accuses the companies of conspiring to artificially inflate the price of iPhones and iPads sold on Amazon's platform, is continuing after other plaintiffs were added to the case.

Apple and Amazon have denied the antitrust claims.

Apple is represented by attorneys from Weil, Gotshal & Manges and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, while Amazon has a team from Sidley Austin, Redgrave and Davis Wright Tremaine.

The tech companies said they would limit their fee request to match hourly rates typically charged in the Western District of Washington. Weil partner Mark Perry, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who co-leads the firm's appellate and strategic counseling practice, said his rate for the purpose of the fee request was $900 an hour. Perry and other defense lawyers in the case did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Hagens Berman client Steven Floyd told his lawyers in January 2024 that he wanted out of the litigation because he did not want to participate in the discovery process, Evanson said last month.

But the firm did not immediately disclose this to the court, the judge said, and instead created the impression that Floyd "had suddenly fallen out of contact in January 2024, for reasons his counsel did not know and possibly unrelated to the litigation."

Hagens Berman's "characterizations of Floyd's situation over the past fourteen months have not reflected his reality," Evanson said.

The judge on Tuesday formally dismissed Floyd's claims from the lawsuit.

-- William Burck and Alex Spiro aren't the only partners at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan who are charging $3,000 an hour.

Court filings in a $34 million fee fight between Quinn Emanuel and former client Desktop Metal showed that Michael Carlinsky, co-managing partner of the firm, is also charging the $3,000 hourly rate.

Carlinsky said in an email he is "honored to be in the same club, so to speak, as Spiro and Burck. Two fine lawyers."

Reuters first reported Burck and Spiro's sky-high billing rates in February. Susman Godfrey also has a pair of veteran litigators — Neal Manne and Bill Carmody — who are charging that much.

-- Williams & Connolly is charging a Minnesota school district a flat rate of $300,000 to defend it in a student disability case at the U.S. Supreme Court, according to information provided by the district that also showed the firm's star appellate partner Lisa Blatt normally charges $2,400 an hour.

The firm initially charged $45,000 for a brief urging the justices not to take up the case, which tests the scope of the law concerning students with disabilities. Firms commonly bill a flat amount for litigation at the high court.

The court heard arguments last week from Blatt, representing the school district, and Latham's Roman Martinez, who argued for the parents of the student who filed the petition at the high court.

Blatt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for the school district said it is "committed to the principles and ideals expressed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act."

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(Reporting by Mike Scarcella)

((Mike.Scarcella@thomsonreuters.com;))