Former LSP Trooper Carl Cavalier visits with Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns immediately after a court hearing in Federal Court for the Middle District of Louisiana on Wednesday, September 18, 2024.
On June 30, 2024, we produced this feature letting everyone know that LSP whistleblower Carl Cavalier had to end up filing bankruptcy and that fact was likely to significantly complicate the resolution of the attorney fees to be shared between his two attorneys, the Craft Law Firm and the Carver Law Firm.
In that feature, during the 4:48 – 7:22 mark of this video on the feature, Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns indicated that, despite guidance he’d gotten that those attorneys would merely become unsecured creditors in the Cavalier bankruptcy, Burns felt that wasn’t “equitable” and that Craft, in particular, should have a “priority claim” on her legal fees because it was her efforts (notwithstanding serious reservations Burns and many others have over the overall handling of Cavalier’s case by Craft) which caused the $200,000 settlement from LSP to even materialize in the first place.
Well, every now and then, we call one right even when bucking against such guidance. Everyone may recall that the bankruptcy trustee sought and obtained expertise needed, in part, to sort out the attorney conflict.
That expertise, combined with subsequent efforts by the bankruptcy trustee, resulted in this filing to resolve the attorney fee matter with the Craft Law Firm receiving $72,000, and the Carver Law Firm receiving $8,000. Thus, it turns out there was essentially the equivalent of a “priority claim” for Craft receiving attorney fees. From the preceding filing:
Now that the Lawsuit has resulted in a recovery of $200,000, both firms sought recovery under their respective 40% contingency fee agreements which gave rise to a contentious dispute between the law firms as to the other firm’s entitlement.
In an effort to avoid the necessity for the Trustee to file formal claim objections that would likely have resulted in protracted litigation, undersigned counsel worked with both parties to reach a global consensual resolution. After multiple discussions between (and among) the parties relating to the history of the Lawsuit and after careful review and consideration of the pleadings in the Lawsuit, the Trustee has reached a compromise with the Carter-Ivey Claimants and the Craft Claimants.
The Trustee agrees to the approval of the allowance of one contingency fee of 40% of the $200,000 Settlement Payment (i.e., $80,000, hereinafter the “Allowed Fee”) to be shared by the Carver-Ivey Claimants and the Craft Claimants.
The Craft Claimants will be paid $72,000 (i.e., 90% of the Allowed Fee) in full satisfaction of their claims against the estate.
The Carver-Ivey Claimants will be paid $8,000 (i.e., 10% of the Allowed Fee) in full satisfaction of their claims against the estate.
Being perfectly candid, as much as we disagree with the manner in which Craft declined to honor the wishes of her client, Cavalier, entailing him not wanting to settle, we do completely agree with her arguments that she should have been entitled to the entire $80,000 in legal contingency fees as it was her efforts that obtained the $200,000 settlement.
We also agree with her legal arguments that the Carver law firm should have received legal fees only if they had procured additional settlement dollars beyond the $200,000 Craft obtained. Nevertheless, we’re sure Craft felt it better to essentially toss the Carver firm a small bone rather than drag the whole matter out in protracted litigation. After all, the settlement offer was made almost two full years ago!
Meanwhile, Cavalier, acting through attorney Robert Morrero, filed this objection seeking to cap legal fees at 33.333% rather than 40%. We see that filing being dead on arrival, and the trustee’s retained expert clearly concurs as evidenced in this Reply to Cavalier’s Opposition. The whole matter of finalizing the attorney fees was set for hearing during the time the hurricane hit, so it has been continued to this Wednesday, September 25, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. The hearing, however, should be a mere formality, and we see it taking very little time at all for this attorney fee resolution to be finalized.
That act of finalizing the attorney fees, along with the associated authorization for LSP to pay the bankruptcy trustee the full $200,000 for distribution, essentially draws to a close all of the Cavalier matter. With that, we want to present this video of Cavalier appearing with Sound Off Louisiana founder Robert Burns for a video focusing on Cavalier’s upbeat outlook on his future and his sharing of lessons that he learned as an LSP whistleblower. Here’s that video:
September 18, 2024: Cavalier shares with viewers his upbeat assessment of his future and also his takes on lessons learned as an LSP whistleblower.
In the preceding video, at the 6:12 mark, Burns began making reference to one of our very first features, which was this June 17, 2015 feature on whistleblower Corey delaHoussaye. In the video above, Burns indicated, as demonstrated from the 6:20 – 6:25 mark, that, “At least that didn’t happen to you. It could have been worse.” What Burns was referring to was the fact that, after District Attorney Scott Perrilloux failed in obtaining an indictment against delaHoussaye (over $6,000 in alleged payroll fraud when delaHoussaye had reported a staggering $50+ million in FEMA fraud), Perrilloux proceeded with a Bill of Information to pursue delaHoussaye (Perrilloux would subsequently dismiss all charges against delaHoussaye). We make that disclosure here only because viewers would not have a clue what Burns referenced in the video above without this supplemental disclosure.
Finally, as Burns indicated, we’re choosing to reproduce the audios of Craft and Cavalier (from this December 26, 2022 feature) wherein Cavalier demonstrates how strongly that he did not want to settle the litigation. As Burns states in the video above, for anyone who has not set aside the time to listen to the audios, we would highly recommend it because of the valuable behind-the-scenes insight we assert these recordings reveal:
9/2/22 (Friday) recorded phone call between Carl Cavalier and his former attorney, Jill Craft. We note that the phone call transpired a mere 16 days after an August 17, 2022 ruling by Magistrate Judge Richard Bourgeois wherein he granted an Order to Stay Discovery in Cavalier’s case as it pertains to LSP Col. Lamar Davis and LSP itself. Thus, Craft was likely both elated and somewhat (maybe more than somewhat) stunned once Defendants did agree to a $200,000 payout right on the heels of such an authoritative Court victory.
Okay. We are now going to provide the two other audio recordings of the other phone calls between Craft and Cavalier entered into the Court record:
9/27/22 (Tuesday) phone call between Craft and Cavalier.
10/13/22 (Thursday) phone call between Craft and Cavalier.
We’re wrapping this feature up in stating that we admire Cavalier’s upbeat approach to focusing on the future and not the past, and we wish him tremendous success in all of his future endeavors to include his much-anticipated future legal career.
