good morning your honors my name is william and my debt and i represent technically my firm i am not here objecting to the settlement but i am here asking for review and reversal of the court's decision not to award our firm any fees based on the objections in modifications to the settlement i was here today and i'm excited to be back i was here thirty years ago i used to be a law clerk here and i was walking through the hallway running how beautiful this building is and i also remember my introduction to chief judge browning and one of the things he said to the group not just to me was a good appellate brief speaks for itself and doesn't require another speaker which means i'll keep my remarks very short compact thank you you know her i think the my record the record rather than my advocacy speaks for itself and i would just ask the court to look at the actual record itself and not the argument to find that there was a link between what we raised and what we asked the court to do and what we asked the parties to do the plaintiffs and wells fargo's to do which two of the things they admitted they did one of them they admitted in a  document and i can go through each one if you want to wants but essentially i think our briefs do speak for themselves looking at last night i do think we supported them in the record so let me ask you on one of them one of your arguments is your argument that you helped improve the twenty five million dollar settlement fund here not waived because seems like you raised that for the st time in a reply brief before the district court your honor i must admit it was raised in a reply brief and i believe we do for i did find some cases that indicated when it's in response to an issue raised in opposing brief it's ok to raise it and not waived in the reply brief and i can find that case but i believe we addressed that in the reply brief but i will admit your honor it was really raised for the st time i do want to argue otherwise so even assuming it's not how does this warrant attorney's fees if the information about the number of unauthorized accounts was public information that's correct to you on it was public information but it didn't appear as if they were going to modify the settlement if you look at the timeline until after we were owed more than one letter asking them to add more money to an emergency the reserve fund i didn't think the twenty five million was sufficient but it was better than nothing there are actually two monetary additions there was the twenty five million reserve fund and then there was they raise it from one hundred and ten million dollars to one hundred and forty million dollars when more information came out that there was potentially another half a one million half a one million potential class members if not more potentially in the class court and my approach is as follows like let's assume you know i go i go to the bears game and i'm in the front row and the field goal kicker goes out on the field and i yell out you got kick the ball between the uprights you know that's good advice but i don't think i added anything that he didn't already know so i couldn't claim any credit if he actually does kick the ball between the uprights which is not a foregone conclusion with barry's field goal kicker is at soldier field but if he actually managed to do it i can't say and i am i'm a participant in that successful action and it's you know oftentimes the same thing happens with with these class settlements where not invariably but often times the proposed settlement is not perfect and may be you know not casting any aspersions maybe the plaintiff's lawyers are asking for more fees than then they should be getting maybe the the recovery isn't being allocated perfectly among the various subclasses but of a lot of that to a district judge is completely obvious and i don't need somebody coming up and saying oh by the way you know this that and the other thing and that's kind of you know the really obvious stuff is akin to me going to soldier field and telling the field goal kicker to kick the ball between the uprights what did you do here that went beyond pointing the quarterback and were yelling just forty one on the field or telling them hey maybe you do the quarterback sneak and he does the quarterbacks knee then i think you would deserve some credit maybe in the paper for winning the game for the bears versus i didn't just yell louder or tell us what you did that was akin to hey the defense is set up in a certain way and i think you need to do a quarterback sneak between the guard in the tackle i mean what did you do that was along those lines as opposed to kick the ball between the operates and i think the best example is the extension of the class claims period they originally started it was going to be one hundred and twenty dollars days and that was submitted to the court i then wrote to the point the plaintiff counsel and wells fargo i didn't write to them always together but i wrote to them and i said that has to be extended and they actually then to their clear if you look at the record that's the best example and i again i credit them with with admitting that at least in the district court below they have changed their mind a bit on appeal unfortunately that's probably the best example that bring the the reserve i'll be the st to admit it looks a little tougher st i've got the potential waiver issue and then there were more people in the class but if you look at the  timeline and you really look at the record as opposed to what people argue what they argue on either side you'll see that there is a time line relationship between when i raised it and when they finally had a discussion with wells to get more money you could argue and they argue it oh well we were going to do that anyways but that standards a bit high and i don't think you'll end up in a situation where you ever ever reward people from or ever ever give people work for coming forward and asking for changes the other changes were made by the court and those are trickier for me those were made not by the plaintiffs and wells fargo but they were the court said change this now it was done after i filed a brief recommending these changes and there is some case law that says just because the court did something doesn't mean credit isn't deserved to those of the suggest that's a tougher one for me but it's there in the record as opposed to the advocacy not that we have to review for abuse of discretion the court's decision with regard to your fees that is the pretty standard  again i do believe it's a one page decision that basically says and does a basically it says the contribution of the council is too small to warrant a few words i actually do respect a judge who i respect a lot and have cases before i think that ruling in of itself is almost an abuse of discretion i think when you look at the record you see it is an abuse of discretion thank you  good morning your honors derek closure for the settlement class from killer back and before responding directly to mr audit i do think it would be useful to talk a little bit about the settlement just to orient ourselves here  to consider what it is exactly that mr debt thinks that he improved you know this this case took a long time to negotiate and these were painstaking difficult  negotiations we had the assistance of professional mediators including julius in this courthouse and lane phillips and the district court was very actively involved he referred referred to his involvement as as as more than normal scrutiny and rigorous scrutiny and the record clearly shows that and this is the wells fargo unauthorized account case that obviously was a became a front page news case but as judge noted on several occasions the monetary damages suffered by the class as consumer case were relatively modest and extremely complicated to sort out in a remedy but that is precisely what this settlement accomplishes there are three major types of relief that are provided each one of which required extensive negotiations and the assistance of the mediators it's a may call settlement in fact it's a more than may call settlement the class recovers all of their out of pocket losses and then there's a residual payment as well that secured to the number of unauthorized accounts each person has it is a uncapped guarantee of compensatory losses meaning that if the formulas that we developed which again took an extreme amount of time and expert assistance to develop result in wells fargo  using up the entire settlement fund to pay out the damages that the settlement requires then wells fargo has to put in more money the settlement also shifts all risk of uncertainty to wells fargo meaning that if our estimates of the number of class members prove to be wrong then wells fargo has to adjust the only part of the settlement that can be affected by that and that's the twenty five million dollars reserve so it is a it's a settlement that sought to actually solve the problem th this difficult case presented and that is what do you do with a scandal that affects thousands and hundreds of thousands of people that subjects them to relatively modest damages but for some people the damages might be quite significant those were the people with the credit injury and the settlement is geared around in a st of its kind type of relief to pay people directly and individually for the credit damages that they themselves have incurred so that that is the the settlement in a big picture judge scrutinize this settlement very very carefully as anyone who's been before judge knows he always does with class action settlements and so here today mr debt is asking the court to find the judge abused his discretion when he determined that mr our debt and his firm's contribution to the settlement was too small to warrant a feat and of course it's a use of discretion standard as a judge will noted and the record clearly shows that mr audit had his opportunity to explain why he thinks improve the settlement and the judge disagreed with that and with all due respect to mr audit he is like the person at the bears game yelling out to the quarterback there was information over the course of this negotiation that became public there was testimony of congress there were things that wells fargo released and we were always incorporating that information into the settlement and taking it into account mr debt was not involved in any of the settlement negotiations he showed up eighteen months after the case was filed after a preliminary settlement was already reached and hard fought negotiations were ongoing and he sent us a lot of letters and e mails and he sent wells fargo the same and at the conclusion of that he asked noted which is the abuse of discretion standard judge carefully consider what it is that mr odd that claimed he did and he disagreed with mr audit and there's nobody in a better position in this case than  understand the contributions that mr debt and his firm made now on this twenty five million dollars reserve question i think that's like a good specific place to start of course we were well aware because it was public  fargo had indicated that its earlier estimates of the number of unauthorized accounts may have been wrong and in fact what wells fargo did was they refined their analysis and they analyzed for a longer period of time but we were very concerned about that  because the portion of the settlement that could be affected by that which is the non compensatory damages you could result in some dilution to the pro rata amount that each person would get so we immediately started negotiating with wells fargo to solve that problem now the record very clearly shows that what mr odette is saying is not true he sent a letter which he identifies as having occurred on september th two thousand and seventeen and  yet we became aware of this problem in august we started negotiating in august and we solved the problem and it really had nothing to do with mr debt he also and i certainly agree that he's waived his arguments by not making  them but as to the twenty five million dollars reserve itself he's now claiming that he had something to do with that that reserve was not the result of this later revision that reserve was made part of the settlement back in june of two thousand and seventeen so obviously his september letter couldn't have led to the creation of the reserve or lead to the adjustments to the reserve let me help me understand your argument about this claims period please it seems like you specifically proposed that the deadline to file a claim be extended in light of the objection and extended deadline became part of the settlement i guess i just like to ask you why wasn't that a substantial benefit to the class here's here's the answer to that it's you're correct that and mr a debt complained about the one hundred and twenty days which was in the initial approval papers the problem that mr audit has is that he tried to explain to the court that he was the reason why the claims deadline extended was extended and the court didn't agree with that did not consider his contribution to that as justifying a fee and you know the court is in the best position not mr a debt understand why the claims deadline was changed and the court itself expressed an interest in more time both before print approval during  area approval and so the court made a decision based upon we think his own view of the fact that there would need to be more time and he would have changed the deadline anyway how do we know that well i guess the question is how do we know that mr odd debt is the reason that the deadline was changed by the court and the answer i asked you st how do we know that how do we know that he wasn't because i don't think judge explained this what i think you can infer from the record which of course you're allowed to do is judge express expressed interest in more time more time to evaluate credit impact damages more time so that more people could submit claims and we can infer from his own statements of interest express that and then why didn't you i mean can you did you respond to his concern in doing that or because it seems like the timing was really might have been related to the objection i'm just trying figure out here why you're saying it would have happened in any way because it seems that seems kind of speculative if that's what you're saying i st of all what mr odette is saying is speculative as well in that he's saying he knows why the judge changed the deadline and he does not  the reason why when he made he did offer the additional time in the form of them objection he not yes he did ok so he can point to something i'm trying to figure out what and eighty two dollars sixty eight cents which is the nd order before preliminary approval identifying topics for discussion at the hearing which included wanting to have more time to evaluate the credit impact damages and with those for those indications from the district court made before or after the objection was filed the they were made after mr odets initial objection was file so at least he has the timing right on this particular claim at least he has the timing right and we have not said that mr audit didn't propose this what we're saying is that it's the district court judge who's reviewed for abuse of discretion who knows better what influenced his decision making and when mr odette said i am i'm entitled to a fee because i proposed this the district court he didn't really bring anything to the table then i think that's intitled to use of discretion review because the judge is telling us exactly what he was thinking but we we don't have that here that's that's correct he did not specifically address this or many other of the objections of mr audits that were overruled or that mr audit subsequently abandoned however his decision in denying the fee isn't titles abuse of discretion and as this court has noted many times the district court was in the best position to evaluate each firm's contribution and mr odette of course had the time an opportunity to explain his contribution made this exact argument to the district court and didn't persuade him there's two other things to keep in mind about what mr odette is claiming the st is that he goes through the numbers in his brief in some detail to show to attempt to show that he is responsible for all the additional people who were able to file claims because of the initial extension and there's twenty two quick things i want to point out about that the st is that there actually were two extensions in this case the nd one had nothing at all to do with mr rudd at we were contacted by the number of the attorneys general who had been conducting their own investigation and they wanted more time for more people to submit more claims and we had no problem with that as was always the case when people proposed there should be more time and so there was a nd one hundred and fifty five day extension that moved the deadline from february to july and that of course has nothing to do with mr a debt and then the last point on this that i think is worth mentioning is that the premise that mr rudd that has here is not just that he had something to do with changing the deadline which you know he certainly did send his letter suggesting that it's that because of that change he is the reason why hundreds of thousands of other people  claims and the reality is deadlines matter and we don't actually know what people would have done if the deadline had never changed and it's entirely speculative to say that one way or the other how many more people filed i think that's another reason why the judge's decision here it was a judgement call the judge made the benefit itself it's not enough to just have a benefit extending the deadline is a benefit it needs to be a substantial benefit in looks like  quote in light of her objection yes there's no question this is that eight are four hundred and forty eight that is correct and it is not our position that mr audit did not suggest an extension nor that we didn't look at that and and as requested we can fight about it we were perfectly happy to extend the deadline the question is not whether the initial deadline our proposal was because of mr rudd that the question is whether the district court judge when deciding to extend the deadline did so and would have done so anyway or did he only do it because mr ahdaf riposte it and again we think it's judge charge who's in the best position to answer that question and it's speculative to assume that he only extended the deadline because of very probably did it because you suggested it right i'm sure he took that into account but he also expressed his own interest in having more time repeatedly repeatedly he wanted more time to evaluate the claims he wanted more time to evaluate credit impact damages and again it's judge who knows why he extended it and if you believe that mr rudd that was the reason and the sole reason which is what the law requires then presumably he would have done something about that but the question here is was there a substantial question please and i apologize to you know this from the record but i assume you will did anyone any party ask the judge for a more robust explanation for the denial of his request for these i think that the judge was there he had a front row seat he evaluated the circumstances and the record supports his decision and and the there was something in the court's recent one day decision that i think sums up the situation very very well and if i may i'll just read that and then my see my time is up what this court wrote was the court the district court which had ably managed this complex litigation for several years and observed various counsels performance during numerous hearings and through extensive brief briefing was in the best position to evaluate each firm's contributions and i believe that is precisely the case here as well thank you