When dealing with an increasingly deregulated telecommunications industry, legislative relief from bad company practices is usually unavailable.  Some customers turn to the courts, through class action lawsuits brought against companies that can’t or won’t do the right thing.  Unfortunately, all too often such actions never bring more than bottom dollar refunds or coupons that can only be redeemed with the provider that treated you badly in the first place.  The real spoils are reserved for the lawyers bringing the case.

In Illinois, that has been proven true yet again as a Madison County judge orders refunds of $21.20 for nearly 700,000 formerly-Illinois Bell business customers who deserved refunds dating back to 2001, but never got them.

Judge Daniel Stack ruled that AT&T, current owner of the impacted area, should pay $21,671,857 total.

But more than $7,000,000 of that will never reach wrongfully charged customers.  Instead, that money will be diverted to pay the lawyers who brought the class action case.

The Madison-St. Clair Record did the math:

[Judge Stack] awarded a third of the judgment, more than $7 million, to class action lawyers Terrence O’Leary of Granite City, Glenn Bradford of Edwardsville, Thomas Londrigan and Timothy Londrigan of Springfield, and Mary Leahy of Springfield.

Stack wrote that they expended more than 3,000 hours on the case.

That would mean they made about $2,400 an hour.

Subtracting their fee leaves less than $15 million for customers, and Stack conceded that complete payment “may be impossible and/or impracticable.”

He ruled that Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation should receive all funds that remain after AT&T has issued credits to current customers.

Legal firms that bring class action lawsuits should be paid for taking the risk of bringing the case, but far too often they, along with one or two original class members, profit handsomely while those actually harmed are left with little once the spoils are divided.  Lawyers and key class members are paid in full (or well beyond) while those victimized are handed lunch money or coupons for a free month of phone features or some other limited value giveaway.  Doesn’t this call into question why any customer would want to participate in such suits in the first place?