- Ford claims one California lemon law firm billed attorney rates for work done overseas.
- The automaker says workers earning as little as $13 an hour were billed at up to $950.
- The lawsuit follows Ford’s failed but ongoing fight against other lemon law firms.
Ford’s battle with California’s lemon law industry isn’t over. Not long ago, a federal judge dismissed the automaker’s sweeping RICO lawsuit against several Southern California law firms. Now, the Blue Oval is back in court with a new target and a fresh allegation.
This time, the company claims a prominent Los Angeles firm turned low-cost overseas labor into premium-priced legal work. It says it was billed for rates of up to $950 per hour for work allegedly performed by workers earning as little as $13 an hour. Those workers, it alleges, were in Mexico and the Philippines.
The suit filed on Thursday, and brought to wider attention by the Los Angeles Times, centers around Quill & Arrow. Ford says the firm used non-lawyers in countries including Mexico and the Philippines to perform much of the work associated with thousands of lemon law cases.
The automaker alleges the firm then passed that work off as having been done by attorneys in California who billed hundreds of dollars per hour. Ford says it has paid Quill & Arrow more than $100 million since 2021, with roughly half of that tied to attorney fees.
Read: California Court Strips Lemon Law Protections For Used Cars Under Warranty
“California’s Lemon Laws are in need of reform, and the courts need to exercise more oversight, given the fraud we continue to expose,” said Doug Lampe, counsel at Ford, in a statement. The law is “being blatantly abused by the lemon law plaintiffs lawyers, the bar is not policing its own, and the courts need to monitor fee awards with far more skepticism and scrutiny.”
The Law Firm Fires Back
Quill & Arrow, for its part, rejects all of it. The firm says Ford is simply trying to intimidate lawyers who pursue lawful claims against it. In fact, it went as far as to call the accusations “absurd” before claiming that it has already secured more than $500 million in recovered funds for consumers under California’s lemon law. That lemon law has increasingly become the sticking point between automakers like Ford and attorneys in the state.
Last year’s now-dismissed RICO lawsuit issued by Ford against some firms alleged a coordinated scheme. The automaker said that it had paid over $100 million in fraudulent legal fees. Among the most eye-catching of those included one attorney billing for 57.5 hours in a single day, and other instances where lawyers billed 20 or 24 hours in a single day. While that lawsuit ultimately failed, the judge in the case didn’t say the allegations were false. Ford plans to appeal.
Now, the automaker appears to be using a narrower legal strategy focused on one firm and a far simpler question. Who exactly did the work that generated millions in legal fees? Given the money at stake, there is likely more to come out of this story in the near future.
