Six years after Enron's collapse, lawyers are salivating over a potential $1.5 billion in fees, the biggest such payout in history. A Texas judge in Enron's securities class-action case is now considering a fee request amounting to 9.5 percent of the more than $7.2 billion that attorneys have recouped for investors. The lead firm's asking rate averages out to a truly startling $2,379 per hour. Enron's bankruptcy case has already netted fees and expenses of more than $725 million. Add to that a $20 billion claim against Citigroup, set to go to trial in April, and disgraced C.E.O. Jeff Skilling may emerge as the legal profession's all-time greatest rainmaker.

Securities Class-Action Case
Newby v. Enron
Sought: $688,000,000
Pages of documents reviewed by all prosecuting lawyers: 70,000,000
Hours billed by lead law firm, Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins: 248,804
Potential payout to Coughlin Stoia: $592,000,000

Bankruptcy Case
Fees and expenses paid to lawyers and accountants as of January 2008: $725,000,000
Hours billed by lead law firm, Weil Gotshal & Mange: 391,820
Fees paid to Weil Gotshal: $149,000,000
Photocopying expenses: $5,400,000

Sources: Legal Cost Control; court filings.