Dr. Trump's Courtroom Adventure

Add this to Donald Trump's many self-proclaimed accomplishments: "I have a Ph.D. in legal fees."

So the notoriously litigious Trump proclaimed in an interview with the New York Law Journal.

What brought it up? His pending legal malpractice lawsuit against the Manhattan firm of Morrison Cohen. Trump harrumphed to Law Journal reporter Anthony Lin that the firm treated him like a "cash cow" and performed unnecessary work to generate higher bills when it sued a golf course contractor on his behalf for — wait for it! — overcharging him.

Trump filed the malpractice suit last April in Westchester County Supreme Court, and Justice W. Rudolph ruled last month that the case could go forward.

Rudolph also oversaw the case against the golf contractor, Columbus Construction Corp., which was hired to work on the Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff Manor, New York.

That suit, begun in August 2001, ended in 2005, when Rudolph awarded Trump about $2 million in damages on an earth-removal agreement, finding that Trump overpaid.

Columbus walked off the job on another contract for infrastructure work: At the time, it said it was owed about $682,000 by Trump, and Rudolph figured that into his ruling, awarding Trump only $40,336 on the infrastructure contract.

Over objections of defendants, Rudolph also awarded $1.3 million in attorneys' fees, saying that the case had been "vigorously litigated."

That is not the way The Donald sees things now. "We won the case because I am a great witness," not because of litigators' skills, Trump told the Law Journal.

The malpractice complaint asserts that Morrison Cohen should never have brought the infrastructure claim because "the pursuit of such claims grossly exceeded the value of any known possible recovery." In the suit, Trump seeks $3 million in damages.

Morrison Cohen counterclaimed for $470,000 in unpaid bills, and the law firm's chairman, David Scherl, has every intention of collecting. "This is a collections case, that's exactly what this is," he says.

The firm's hourly rates for partners range from "the mid four hundreds to high five hundreds" an hour, he says, much lower than the Skaddens of the world. But it also expects to be paid what it bills — there is no bill-shaving or discounts at Morrison Cohen. "Our clients pay 100 cents on the dollar," Scherl says.

Trump told the Law Journal that Morrison Cohen was preoccupied with their fees throughout the case. Adding, no doubt, to his Ph.D.

by Karen Donovan