As consolidated multidistrict litigation has come to dominate the federal civil docket, the problem of how to divide attorney fees among participating firms has become the source of frequent and protracted litigation. For example, in the National Football League (NFL) Concussion Litigation, the judge awarded the plaintiff attorneys over $100 million in fees, but the division of those fees among the twenty-six firms involved sparked two additional years of litigation. We explore solutions to this fee division problem, drawing insights from the economics, game theory, and industrial organization literatures. Ultimately, we propose a novel division method based on peer reports. Participating firms assess the relative contribution of other firms to the litigation, and then optimization or Bayesian techniques arrive at a consensus or compromise fee allocation. Our methods are intuitively easy to understand, enable broad participation, and are resistant to collusion or other strategic behavior, making them likely to be accepted by the firms involved. We thus provide courts with an important mediation tool or decision rule for these fee division disputes.

中文翻译：

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在多区诉讼中分配律师费

由于合并的多地区诉讼已成为联邦民事诉讼的主导，如何在参与公司之间分配律师费的问题已成为频繁和旷日持久的诉讼的根源。例如，在美国国家橄榄球联盟 (NFL) 脑震荡诉讼中，法官判给原告律师超过 1 亿美元的费用，但在涉及的 26 家公司之间分摊这些费用又引发了两年的诉讼。我们从经济学、博弈论和产业组织文献中汲取见解，探索这一费用分配问题的解决方案。最终，我们提出了一种基于同行报告的新划分方法。参与公司评估其他公司对诉讼的相对贡献，然后优化或贝叶斯技术达成共识或妥协费用分配。我们的方法直观地易于理解，能够广泛参与，并且能够抵抗共谋或其他战略行为，使其很可能被相关公司所接受。因此，我们为法院提供了解决这些费用分割纠纷的重要调解工具或裁决规则。