The private lawyers would be required to go through the arbitration process but pay the arbitrated fees into a state trust fund for distribution. A panel of lawmakers would then determine the actual fee payments. The Missouri Supreme Court held that, while the legislature can reject the fee arrangement by which the tobacco companies pay fees directly to the lawyers, it cannot modify the arrangement. If the legislature either rejects or attempts to modify the fee arrangement in ways unacceptable to the private lawyers, then the lawyers can reject the arbitration process and instead assert their rights to payment under the agreement of June 1998. Lawyers' fees are subject to a reasonableness standard.
All lawyers are subject to post-contractural review of their fee arrangements.
As for the third argument, the Missouri Supreme Court stated that the legislature can control the payment arrangement and can provide an alternative mechanism for compensating the lawyers. Obviously, the legislature can modify the fee arrangement. Finally, in the event SB 454 is enacted, Nixon's band of lawyers are not free to reject the arbitration process and set a contingency fee under their original contract. Doing so would cause financial injury to Missouri, and the lawyers would be violating their duty of loyalty, committing malpractice and breaching their fiduciary obligation. Even if Missouri were to suspend its ethical rules and lawyers' fiduciary obligations, the lawyers' claims would be limited to hourly rates set forth in the original contract, since the settlement occurred prior to Jan. 1, 1999.