Ford
Law Firms
RICO billing conspiracy by law firms ‘hoodwinked’ courts, Ford alleges in suit seeking $300M
May 22, 2025, 2:45 pm CDT
A closeup of the Ford sign is seen outside a Ford dealership store in Sunnyvale, California, in May 2022. (Photo from Shutterstock)
Three California law firms are part of a racketeering conspiracy that “ingeniously” inflated fee requests in lemon law litigation by spreading their fraudulent billing across thousands of cases against many car makers, according to a $300 million lawsuit filed Wednesday by the Ford Motor Co.
Fee claims in multiple cases reveal “a magical mystery tour of fictitious billings, including individual attorneys who supposedly worked more than 24 hours per day or simultaneously attended different trials or depositions in geographically distant jurisdictions,” according to the May 21 suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Named as defendants in the suit are three California firms, five lawyers and a paralegal.
Over the last 10 years, the suit says, the defendants submitted attorney fees requests totaling more than $100 million to the Ford Motor Co. on behalf of car buyers seeking damages because of allegedly defective cars. The The Knight This This lawsuit–which makes no claim that Knight Law’s clients were harmed in any way–mischaracterizes the facts, and the claim that billing practices amount to a ‘racketeering enterprise’ is ridiculous.”
Contact information for Mikhov was not available from the State Bar of California’s attorney search page.
Law360, Reuters, Bloomberg Law, the Daily Journal, the Detroit News, Courthouse News Service and the Los Angeles Times are among the publications that covered the suit.
Ford is represented by Kasowitz Benson Torres in the suit.
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