The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-12-18

G1VNR OuS0SASONAA~u AASAAeNo
 Whole Fight of Ad-
 ministratiOn Is Centered on
 Single Suit Electric
 Bond and Share Is Big Tar
 get.
 By RODNEY BUTCHER IThe Democrat Washington Cor
 reSpOndent)
 Washington, Dec. 17.-With all the humility which most lawyers feel is becoming to @ layman, it is suggested that many of the attor- neys have long been biting the hand that fed them and that the hand now has bitten back.
 More than 2,500 suits have been filed against the government as a result of New Deal legislation. If you were to guess that the average cost of fighting such cases up and through the supreme court was S5O,OOO (some cost hundreds of thousands), you could figure that there was possible $125, 1000, ,000- mostly in legal fees-for the law Ners of the country to scramble for.
 Anyway, that's the idea, even though the figures may be cock eyed.
 Fees Snatched Away
 Now comes the government, through Attorney General Homer S.1 Cummings, in a move that is likely to take millions in fees out of their reach. Faced with fifty widely scattered suits against the public utility holding company act and the threat of 50 more, Cum n1ings asked the federal district court here to hold everything until the government could get a U. s. supreme court decision on its main case against the Electric Bond & Share Go.
 "Of course" said Cummings, stmany attorneys will be profess sionally disappointed"
 What he meant was that many attorneys would be financially Agonized. For the big money in
 these cases comes from the work
 in the circuit courts of appeals and the supreme court itself.
 His plea was calculated to break the hearts of some of the worlds biggest and best corporation law yers and host of smaller fry in New York, Washington, Philadel- phia, and other places.
 l There's some heavy gasping go- ing on here because this was the first time an attorney general had l eyer appeared in mere district court, because this was the first tfno the government had ever fought back in such manner | against myriad of lawsuits, and !, because Cummings made the un- precedented promise that if fed- eral disrict courts were going to deny his plea, the government would let the utilities get all the injunctions they liked without con- test while it kept concentrating on the Electric Bond & Share case. Shock to Attorneys
 : It was a bad shock to lawyers for the holding companies, whose spokesmen had been boasting that the government would have to get together with them and agree on four or five suits as test cases.
 (Which had made government 1- .nkIaAvs hA00nCA if sounded like an arrogant threat that the power trust" had enough money to run them ragged in the courts if they wouldn't negotiate with the corporations on their own terms.)
 Those lawyers were hard put to explain why, since they all insisted the act be voided as unconstitu- tional in its entirety. 8 straight clear-cut test couldn't be had in case involving the best known and most widespread holding company. W John c. Higgins, of the enormous and expensive Wall street firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, even told the court it had no power to do any such thing and cast so many as- persions around that some of the utility Washington counsel began 2 to whisper about the genius of New York big shots in coming down to the provinces and saying the wrong thing"
 Whatever the judge decides, the government will concentrate on the U. B. & s. case and let the rest go bang.
 < In so doing, it probably will ruin The power trust" strategy of &ganging up" to bring more suits Than it possibly could defend. Legal Talent COrnered N Cummings and his men found Themselves opposed by 8 horde Of highly trained permanent com- pany counsel familiar with affairs pf the suing companies, plus eight Or 10 big New York and Washing ton law firms, which had been CO., Operating for months on the issues. ~ A frantic effort to find new and IN competent legals talent to help SEC defend all these cases re- z veaIed that practically all avail able able talent had been hired T by the utilities or was connect ' ed with them in one way or an- ' other. \ The new federal technique is Cough on the big lawyers. But it's a Christmas gift to taxpayers-and utility stockholders as well as con- Burners.
 < Copyright, 1885, NEA Service, Inc.)