source of one point eight nine billion dollars of funds that was recovered for the plaintiffs in your judgment paragraph nine of the cook retainer agreement provides that any funds recovered are to be remitted into a joint escrow account and cook has to be paid first paragraph nine makes clear the cook's fees to be paid from the judgment recovered there is no language in the cook retainer agreement to suggest the cook i litigation attorney so the sole issue presented is whether plaintiffs are parties or of bound by the contract under basic principles of contract interpretation or writing must be interpreted as a whole giving reasonable lawful effective meaning to all of its terms in light of the circumstances surrounding the parties at the time contract was made this is an enforcement contract that was entered into after the judgement to bring about a recovery which specifies cook has to be paid first the nature of the contract and the mechanics of payment of cook's fees strongly suggests that the of the arbitration and it's in briefing oh well so what's relationship between that in this case why should why should the courts you're asking the court your exercise exercise to recognize only why should they do that in your case since the arbitration proceedings are under way and halfway through well because the law is in that us if trust and and  in order to affect you have effect a remedy we need our lane and we're entitled to a lane under our contract with the with the point to us and the attorney i'm not sure i follow that because if the money is in a trust and the purpose of to make sure that the plaintiffs the party that the council represented doesn't abscond with money the money presumably will be held until the lawyers is determine or not no that's not true and we are we have then the trust is being administered by the new york district court and and that money could could leave the trust we have been asking a new york  here but if we if if for us to decide i'm confused by what you just said whether or not the plaintiffs have agreed to read we have to look to their agreement with is that's that's what we look to see and that count that agreement says very clearly several times that the plaintiffs are not although they've agreed to lead counsel hiring your client they've made it met that makes very clear in several places that the plaintiffs are not responsible for any of the expenses in connection with that we believe that that clause can also be interpreted as simply a cost plus the  tourney's will under no circumstances represent to any vendor supplier services that your client or contractor that they are incurring spence's on behalf of the plaintiffs it says it three times i believe it can be interpreted as simply assuring the plaintiffs that under no circumstances unless the the agreement says what it says my agreement i believe can be interpreted to to to to say just what i've set which is that there is no cost will be incurred to the plaintiffs and plaintiffs without be responsible unless there's recovery at which point costs can be paid to two whether it's lobbyists or all the other people that were responsible for judgment so those costs can be paid i think the other the other critical point here is that this the underlying agreement was not shown to michael so there's another analysis here that would be actual authority the other stockholder and and those would be another pace's upon which the plaintiffs would be b having a property right claim against that an equitable claim against that until we have our determination and the money is why would one need that in the absence i mean i understand it as a general matter what the law so provides but i'm trying to understand in this case well other than leverage what protection would you need from any such well because i mean you're just without the only in the money gets dispersed to to the various  forward in paper but the lane doesn't stop at presumably the leader will be in place until i mean you still have to make calculations in order then to release the funds or something that's right so so either in either event you have to have he said the money has been held up while the money has not been distributed there have been a number of different claims against that money and i say this of trust one of them as our claim but there are many others and you'll see you there is another claim here for mr  said so that money has been held up pending that but we're talking about a period of about six months until this is all that's that that's a request that lean right tha good morning they praise the court on john bell for the plaintiffs in this case and it is quite there are two elements to an equitable the equitable lean that's being sought here one is in agreement with a client to is an agreement with the current that the funds paid to an attorney be paid be paid from the clients there are some monies they have been paid there are some monies they have been retained there are monies retained to pay claims that warriors have against the clients the participants here have all participated in a process before the district court in new york judge forest appointed a special master the special master has made a report to the district court the time for objections to the special masters report has passed and now we're awaiting an order from judge forest about her resolution of in part the same disputes analogous disputes that are here i mean does it really say the same because here the queens are claimed as a matter of d c all right i'm just curious why we're here why this isn't something that could be dealt with by an agreement among all the claimants on the attorney's feet portion to keep it in trust until the allocation is work or to keep enough of it and then trust the disputed part in trust until the allocation is worked out i understand you have a many people who are involved in a complex process of litigation and i'm i'm just curious why you would be fighting this on behalf honor the plaintiffs here are mostly marines and they the semper fi the brotherhood idea of the remains shows through in all the actions they've taken they feel these duties to people who have been with them from the horn beginning of this case and the unlikelihood of recovering anything from the islamic republic of iran and they want to do that they want to pay these people the claims involved here are you i am not certain of the present magnitude of mr glenn's claim but if one point it ranged to sixty million dollars mr cooke's claim at one point was two hundred ten million dollars so the sums involved are huge interfere with distribution to a small army of lawyers who did basically damages proofs and in these cases they took those cases on contingency and it's almost two years since the supreme court has said that they should be paid at the plaintiff should be paid and these people are still waiting for their es that we filed we have filed a transcript from the arbitration in which the litigation attorneys have agreed to risk assume responsibility for seen it that way but yes he has asserted because of the nature of this lean now you know that you don't see many cases between attorneys that's because an equitable charging lean in d c does not exist between percentage of the total recovery goes to the lawyers do we know that is that unresolved yeah that was sad numbers result right that was clear that it was and yes and cook and glenn have agreed that phones from the phone to the point i just don't see why nor do i your honor but that would have to be a question for judge bork in his counsel because it's a question we have posed to judge bork and that is his counsel because earlier as i understood it one of the points you're making was that uncertainty about the amount that's owed to say cook yes a reason that the plaintiffs might resist this kind of proceeding because they don't want to be they don't want to have their recovery subject to ambiguity about what share of the recovery should be taken aside to get a cook but the plaintiffs estimation of liability  cook might be to waters of magnitude less than the amount of the ween that mr cook claims is the amount of lead because if if everybody agrees that whatever coke recovers comes out of the lead attorneys share which has been agreed then then it should matter to the plaintiffs because then they know what's going to be locked off for lead counsel and then all we're talking about is how that amount is allocated as amongst the various counsel that have a stake but there's there's still the issue of timing which is a concern to the plaintiffs and the these this is their money they don't get to do what they would like to do with it they the clients write it so the an attorney has a charge in a lien where the attorney is representing a client and the client and the attorney understand that the attorney is going to be paid out of the cases proceeds there are i'd let me take issue with that it's where the the attorney is retained by the far right attained by the client or surely i mean an attorneys and they seek to bring on and they are empowered by their contract with the plaintiffs to bring on their counsel my question is aren't those other counsel counsel for the plaintiffs they're not for example counsel doing know contract work for the litigation attorneys writing their contracts with the plaintiffs they're doing legal work for the plaintiffs that's democratic central committee answers that question not exactly because a democratic central committee the  court said at the outset that the lien that the that the subsidiary of china was seeking was a lien against the primary attorney and they said therefore this issue doesn't arise and then there's dictum about charging when it's more generally but that's a very different situation that's more like a lawyer that the primary lawyer hires to write up its contracts as distinct from here where counsel peers pro hockey who are litigation counsel counsels presumably has attorney client privilege because they're lawyers for the client and so there is an attorney client relationship and of course it's mediated through the supervision of litigation counsel but but the underlying question of who are they  them it is also clear that they said you cannot do that at our expense it's clear in the contract and it's also good as a matter of  preexisting legal duty to the plaintiffs to do the collection work on their behalf for the contingent fee that they were supposed to receive and that's why all counsel here are nobody disputes that the percentage of the percentage that is claiming comes out of fame perilous is money so it's coming out of the award as a processes proportions so it is coming out of the word so if you're as a lawyer thinking of i going to go do this work under the umbrella of leave that occasion attorneys and you're thinking do i need to write some special security and you think no i don't because my money is coming from what we recover that will be on the table that will you there and even a fan promise goes bankrupt my money's coming out of the recovery as a percentage that that has been cook is also now argue now he is yes is he entitled to that trial yes yes but again this is the plaintiff's money they control it they didn't authorize there has been an understanding between all the claimants as to yourself trust that nobody is making a claim as to plato's proceeds and they can be distributed there's no the layer that there are issues within the trust but has nothing to do with any of our claims so if you do it is questionable as to whether counsel is here really on behalf of lawyers or on behalf of the pyres because they don't really have they don't really not the plaintiffs proceeds directly but only those that share the proceeds that go to the occasion to try so that nobody wants to hold up money for the players and i think everybody all counsel are in agreement on that so that's that's that would be the limitation that's how we would understand it since we've agreed that they will be responsible for the award then we can simply limit that lien to to their share of the fees to make sure that there is no interference with any remaining distributions the plaintiff but my understanding is that something in the range of ninety five percent that's been distributed to the point so there really is no issue for the plaintiffs here today they don't have a  please the court stephen storks were telling jay glenn first i think it's clear but i just want to reiterate mr glenn who is a war veteran has been very explicit below that he does not want a penny from the plaint making separate distributions to the attorneys on their claims so has that process that not a process has begun what has slowed it up are a number of things including some of the plant this did not have the correct information  i don't know the answer to that we have been trying to get the information we don't have that mr glenn's claim against what you want to lean correct mr glenn's current claim against these funds is eleven million two hundred sixty seven thousand and change based on the pro rata distribution that is being distributed out from the fund so we are able to calculate the mr duane street it does not in any way impair the money we have in the record below mr glenn did forty one depositions on the damages case he met with clients and we've laid out on the record what he did and the fan probably centuries we don't think he did the job have to have those calculations been used to compensate  it's been presented to the trustee overseeing it yourself trust i don't know the the way the distributions rate is somewhat opaque to us we were denied intervention in the proceedings so we don't get all the information as to what's going on much of it's under seal but i think the fact that we're not going after the plaintiffs the plaintiff money is extremely important here because i only think we need to discuss this in terms of an attorney charging way i think this is really a against the fund of the attorney's fees in one case he actually filed his lien against the fun created in another case and what they said in d c c and it really isn't dick there because ultimately d c said hey we're not empowered to decide the attorney for the issue but in d c see they said you have the plaintiffs never agreed that you could take money out of that other fund the only agreement you're pointing to is an agreement with an attorney to take it out of a different fund so you're asking us to make two jumps or one that the attorney could bind the clients into but somehow we should shift the agreement now to a different phone the district court relied on another case the hogan case out of the ninth circuit and that's a similar issue there there was an agreement between the attorney that the attorney was going to pay the other attorney co counsel fee that attorney who was supposed to pay the fee went bankrupt so he was also disbarred the tourney who claimed he was owed money went to the bankruptcy court and his claim was discharged he was denied it because of the bankruptcy he then went and filed a lien against the clients money saying hey i should be paid out of your money but the district court in hogan and i circuses wait a minute you can't back door you we also raise the equitable lien ordering that below maybe we didn't emphasize enough to be honest but we did raise that there was an ecuadorian and we emphasize that we're not going against the client's money that this dispute is between us and the attorneys and in fact i don't think there was a that said when i signed these thirty three clients up i told them that my percentage would be one third of the famed perlis fee and that i would be paid out of that fifty and he had submitted i think it was well it's not exactly because as we as we pointed out that the contract said that we're going to retain other attorneys right that so it's not carter to come in and said not but but that but that the players would not be responsible for any you're right no because the c c they were actually going after the clients money in d c see the green that was for a specific fund of attorneys fees that the attorney was supposed to get for whatever reason maybe the fund was too so that's why i think the c c really is distinguishable and i think a lamb subsequent to the d c case articulated that you know don't treat these attorney liens as different than an equitable lien because what you have here is a situation  where you know the money goes to fame perilous and you know the judge toler to a question they're already fighting between themselves there are all sorts of competing claims the purpose of the lane is to is to protect you from having to let me begin by addressing a fundamental legal point here mr stewart is distinguishing between a charging lien and an equitable plea they are not different things d c has no statutory attorney clean it recognizes at equity one lean one mean only an equitable charging that has two elements to satisfy an agreement with the client to be retained and in agreement with the client that the attorney be paid from a corpus recovered in the action was and so that i understand that that means that there could never be an equitable lien against attorneys for fees that they owe to other attorneys not in d c d c does not recognize that there could these people may both of these lease really does that just seems it just seems like a natural equitable instrument that and it's why why would it be the case that under law that you could attach a lien against clients but you couldn't attach a lead against  because equity was concerned with the client using excess power by having command over the corpus against the  that's not so between lawyers and the warriors between each other or both sophisticated players d c will recognize a contractual mean judge who were noted that that they could these people they didn't use the same or is the same equitable concern present among lawyers where there is the litigation counsel as you put it having excess power over the corpus against the lawyers who had a smaller role the one reason there is not is because of the ethical duty that orders have to sequester contested funds that are in their possession so equity does not need to come to the rescue and that's why i'm a little puzzled why you are resisting this it seems that and also why there's not a council on this matter separate from litigation counsel yourselves it's you you are counsel for the plaintiffs the underlying action that's current now there's a fee dispute between various attorneys and fundamental rule of war is that the owner of property gets to control their own property the plaintiffs here are resisting a foreigner someone with whom they have no contracts will relationship exercising control over their funds the q s seth was created for the benefit of the plaintiffs the trustee is a trust and i believe the same will be true mr glenn's claim is proceeding both he's got is position before the district court in new york he's got a claim pending before the district court in  the same way the wires here are seeking an extraordinary sad status under equity to which they could legally are rule twenty six f conference on friday and you did you have you received any payment of fees so have i know that has that has the litigation counsel yes and  your retainer has an express lean and and you didn't assert that at any point and that case is now pending its significance for this is this appeal is that in the court as we cited the court said stop making this artificial distinction between a lien and a cause of action if you have a cause of action for fund then there's no reason why there shouldn't be a loon mr famous the pro us are actually asking to put themselves in an extraordinary position which is have the plate this pay us the money that mr glenn is claiming and we'll take that money and will say we don't think you did a good job and we'll hold on to it and litigate with them that's an extraordinary position the liens come into operation not by express agreement by operation of law i other for breaches of fiduciary duty for having dissipated money not done things properly there are other attorneys that are out there that have actually put in affidavits claiming about difficulty in having gotten collections it's for a judge lamberth we would but we would happy to do it on an expedited track and then if we're successful and we believe we will be but there will be money there for us to collect it wouldn't be the first step and then having to go against us listening to them  well who i was what you owe that much i owe that much oh i had to pay so and so that then such was the glenn years of litigation which frankly is a tactic and defending against those claims so that's why we have for equitable help in this regard