A beef about lawyers’ fees in a bankruptcy exposes some attitudes about actual work.  In the Washington Mutual bankruptcy case, finally wrapping up the last details—like allocating the legal fees—generated this argument: some of WaMu’s creditors didn’t like the size of the fees awarded, since those would cut into the creditors’ recovery.

The core of the beef was that the billing included 24-hour days and working through weekends, resulting in weeks’ worth of work without breaks.

Hmm….

Any graduate student would be familiar with that.

And the bankruptcy judge on the case, Mary Walrath, an ex-bankruptcy lawyer herself, was having none of it, either.

The day I started at my firm they filed a huge Chapter 11 case and I did not take a day off for six months.  I am not surprised that there were many days of even 24 hours because I spent those times in the office as well.