well know i got shot in this case right sorry now i got shot you only got shot in this case me please the court gary meant it for the appellant read smith the district court's memorandum in order and joining reed smith's new york state court action against former co counsel wall was error for multiple independent and sufficient reasons were the injunction allowed to stand reed smith would be left without a forum to new york state no after that when the motion was made to stay the new york state court action as far as i know that's when that motion went to judge but instead of judge as a new case or whatever it was not filed as a involved prior relatively minor we think are not getting to the merits of whether they were conflicts and not but you don't deny that they were told by defense counsel that that might be a potential conflict yes that is correct so that they would be a reason not to involve the settlement negotiations well that will certainly assuming that the injunction is lifted in the case goes forward in state court i'm sure that they will raise that as a defense and say that  reid smith was terminated for cause because these conflicts arose and so they had justification to terminate reid smith you know and our our view in that case is that no what was going on here was that  existing counsel saw an opportunity to push reid smith out of the case to block them from being involved in the settlement to go she was to prevent them from doing additional work and earning a substantial fifty and that that was was present at the hearing before judge code on fees but made no request for fees that's correct and why was a well reasoned as i said resubmit made a determination that that because they had been the case for a short period of time and they did not want to delay the the the the the the award of fees they made a decision not to seek an award of fees at that time and to make it later well that again you know again you're getting to the to really the what what's the question here and the question is whether you know the the the at least position and judge buchwald's decision really rests on the fundamental issue of whether or not a state court the state court tort action when when we could of is because we had only been in the case for a short period of time we didn't want to interfere with the award of fees and we're not jalen we're not saying that that plane discounts was awarded too much fees or that they're not entitled to the fees that they were awarded what we're saying is that they they interfered they intentionally interfered with the contract between reed smith and the plaintiffs the class plaintiffs and as a result of that read smith was unable to do additional work and obtain a substantial fit now what was that for interfering to in fact mr wall in his a which is that the so what the damages here are not the not the fees that that they would have obtained had they made a fee application would have been a small amount arguably it would have been a small amount that and they may argue that in the state court that that that that that amount is gone and that would be you know maybe of damages it cetera that that's an issue that hasn't been of contract we're not limited in the new york state court case to just you want to punish them for bad behavior yes we're entitled to punitive damages that's correct but not just punitive damages also the damages the damages would be measured by what we could have entitled to a substantial fee had they been allowed to participate in the in the in the settlement process they could have added to the settlement process but also they would have been entitled to a larger fee ok all right well you ours is a very simple case it's about respecting an order of federal court he is very special k very simple case because we have officers of court here or who have evaded a federal court order and it's more so here them written notice that they should apply for fees you see in the retainer agreement that they signed with class in their with draw to judge cotto they noticed on its page four to eight of the appendix that they were going to they never did anything they knew that they had done no work in the case they were in the case for a total of two days four days after they said it's seven days after they solicited mr wall once they saw that quit emanuel had a conflict that took it was eight days they disclosed this conflict the conflict was a mild one it was a lawyer and reed smith had advertised it services of all seven hundred of its lawyers being available to class counsel out of the  blue its conflict was a mild one one of its attorneys had represented s e c capital in the ongoing government investigations and as the c capital and this wasn't a little cases one of the most prominent investigations the government  conflicts the conflict that is completely inappropriate behavior for anyone especially counsel very greedily looking for a fee completely inappropriate so the concept then of ignoring judge code is very clear order which says it's your obligation if you've got anything to do with this case if your council class council is not going to file a free application for you it's incumbent upon you to do it it's in their retainer agreement and it's in  the court's order they did nothing mr wall being careful because lawyers have different views of the world and it read smith didn't like being fired lawyers they fired x they were fired they deceived fired by class by the clyde the plaintiffs they were they fired was there a letter or i believe mr wall picked them up and told them you're out they withheld a conflict that's very should have been made for attorneys fees by march twenty third two thousand and seventy just in the trial court after explaining to read smith's counsel how rule twenty three feet applications work said that their claims after saying not nice things about their claims which is in our record here said that their claims were a stretch because judge codes were said if you've got a claim that it concerns attorney's fees which their claims here clearly are they should have been made in the fired or terminated if this is a target of a contract they don't have lifetime tenure they get fired trial lawyers get entitle to anything as the result of what they do their lawyers for a living whether they're entitle to be paid for whatever it was they did for those brief period time they were connected to this class these plaintiffs mr wall and all that was before a judge because of a court claim as i had to stand it is not about necessarily fees but about was interference in that their right to participate in the distribution of fees originally judge buchwald calls it that all but knew she says that this matter has been decided she says that this claim was presented below and before and that's why we're part of the exception and that's why we get to bar this and that's what they're really suing for they've dressed old acception which is to protect to reflect to edith's judgments and the the court had granted a judgement settling the settling the fees yes i mean that's that's what this is about that's why they're covered by the exception and the different exception than than the them the protect the courts in aid of the court's jurisdiction yes it was the matter was terminated was it not you know it's not the recorder swipe the application was made back before judge buckle the judge kowtows water is continuing so it's exclusive and the applications are supposed to be made there that's why the what was this what was the state of the of the action it's exclusive and ongoing i don't have the matter not the matter the docket was it terminated because our actual attempting to stay was made back before judge buchwald couple things that were said judge could recused himself for reasons we don't know do because it wouldn't have would have done before judge total it had deceived the court two hundred appeared you can't appear in front of a court if you've got a conflict you can't represent clients if you've got an undisclosed contract and they had they had deceived class council as to whether they could appear or not paul weiss it class counsel for counsel for a c c capital had raised that very day and other conflict that reed smith had that had been worked out that may or may not have been worked out but this one the one about fastow and the ongoing government has to geishas that had been disclosed at all so that was the issue at all but our across to appeal these matters the two claims they filed the  acting in this decision was reached on the merits of the case we've cited that's from the fourth circuit these claims do get reached on the merits we're not supposed to go back and do this for own tense and purposes ju buckled has decided this because when we litigate the court's orders there judge colors order states or nothing else they're supposed to present at this claim so they're measured damages the same the brief and page six and nine is all about attorneys fees there's nothing else they can't be compensated for anything else regarding this work so to send it back for any purpose whether even is for judge buchwald this is not appropriate it doesn't give the due respect the judge totals order is entitle to in the not cited case from this circuit or any other circuit where this is been allowed to happen there's some cases where there is a contract something like that between lawyers there's no contract between mr waller and reed smith that didn't occur this is a theory they've got that deliberately matter continue to argue this case as if what reed smith did was go to state court and sue the class for the for the contract claim for fees if reed smith had done that that would be wiley right that once there's been a field award in the federal class action implicit in that field warrant one of the standards is that the representation was adequate and by suing your lawyers in state court you're saying the opposite you're saying that the that the but york state court has a different different elements are case in state court is completely different because what we're doing in state court is we're saying we're not suing the class for the fee we're suing first part of the decision is generally the even a federal court dealing with a state court generally you do not get to dictate to another court what the pro clue sieve effect is of your order right it's only if it really offends federal jurisdiction here that's for judge scar politicized in new york state supreme and there's no reason to think that she'll get it wrong that and they they can certainly argue to her that there is some preclude of effect to the fact that reid smith did not make an application for fees in federal court we're not saying that they can't seek that precludes of effect in the court but what we're seeking in state court goes beyond that and it is certainly not completely encapsulated by that and that was that's why this case is different than wiley because in wildly there could be no favorable result for the plaintiffs in state court that would not by necessity and definition offend what had happened if it weren't a favorable result without attacking the fiel