A judge has branded Bruce Lehrmann a “man of modest means” after the former employee was hit with a $2 million legal bill following his failed defamation lawsuit.
Judge Michael Lee made the comment during a case management hearing in the Federal Court on Thursday, following a costs submission by Network Ten’s lawyer Zoe Graus.
The court heard Network Ten racked up a huge bill of $3.6 million from the time the defamation action was launched in February last year, which goes beyond Judge Lee’s ruling in April.
Lehrmann is expected to pay 90 percent of the costs of the network’s successful truth defense and 70 percent of the failed qualified privilege defense that, along with a slight discount, reduced the total bill to $2 million. Dollars.
The final amounts will be determined by a court-appointed arbitrator, but there are questions about whether Lehrmann will be able to pay the bill because he is a second-year law student who has been out of work since 2021.
However, the real winner of the trial appears to be Network Ten lawyer Matthew Collins KC, who was owed $768,750 for his involvement in the case alone.
Bruce Lehrmann (pictured) has been hit with a $2 million legal bill in the defamation case.
Pictured: Matthew Collins KC, Zoe Graus and Tim Senior outside the Federal Court in May
Details of the bill were revealed in an affidavit by Thomson Geer lawyer Marlia Saunders, who represented Ten, that was filed during Thursday’s hearing.
In the affidavit, Ms Saunders outlined the hourly rates of the individual lawyers and solicitors who defended the network.
Dr Collins was the highest paid silk with a daily rate of $11,000, his junior counsel Tim Senior was paid $4,000 per day and was owed $407,900 at the end of the trial, while Ms Graus’ daily rate was $2,200 and was owed $19,778.
Thomson Geer’s individual attorneys’ fees are also detailed in the affidavit.
Ms. Saunders earns $730 an hour and was owed about $738,000 for more than 1,000 hours of work when the trial ended, while senior associate Connor O’Beirne’s hourly rate was $530 and he was owed about $379,000.
Another associate charged $435 per hour, a graduate charged $275 per hour, and a senior paralegal charged $310 per hour.
The monthly invoices described in the affidavit also revealed that Network Ten received huge monthly invoices from Thomson Geer, between February 2023 and May 2024.
Most of the 25 invoices asked for hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single month of work.
Details of the bill are detailed in the affidavit of Marlia Saunders (pictured).
Lisa Wilkinson is pictured speaking to the media after her libel victory in April.
In March 2023, the network received a bill for $283,959. It was also billed $46,188 and $81,424 for April and May respectively.
The largest single bill was for $353,319 in December, which was the month of the defamation hearing.
According to the affidavit, most of the overhead costs were associated with preparing for and attending the trial, including preparing final written submissions.
Lisa Wilkinson also charged the network a cumulative $1.8 million when she hired her own legal team to defend her in the defamation suit, rather than using Ten’s lawyers.
His preferred firm was Gillis Delaney Lawyers, where the supervising partner charges $750 an hour and the lead defamation lawyer, Sue Chrysanthou SC, charges $8,000 a day.
Judge Lee said Dr Collins’ daily rate may appear excessive to those unfamiliar with the costs associated with a defamation trial, but believed his fees were in line with those of others in Melbourne.
Ms Chrysanthou’s invoices were also mentioned, but it was suggested her fees were in line with market value in Sydney.
If Lehrmann goes bankrupt and bills are not paid, Network Ten will have to cover its own costs and those of Wilkinson.
