{"id":19826,"date":"2025-10-24T21:07:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T21:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/19826\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T21:07:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T21:07:06","slug":"google-to-pay-190-million-in-legal-fees-to-texas-law-firms-in-privacy-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/19826\/","title":{"rendered":"Google to pay $190 million in legal fees to Texas’ law firms in privacy settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oct 24 (Reuters) – Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab<\/a> Google said on Friday that it has agreed to pay up to $190 million in legal fees to private law firms representing Texas as part of a $1.375 billion consumer privacy settlement with the state.Google in a court filing also said it would pay $71 million in legal fees to the Texas attorney general\u2019s office as part of the May settlement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Texas\u2019s lawyers at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright and Google asked the state court in Midland to issue a final judgment based on the settlement.<\/p>\n

Norton Rose and the attorney general\u2019s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Google in a statement said the accord “settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed.”<\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Google<\/a> in 2022, alleging it collected face geometry and voiceprints from residents without consent, tracked users\u2019 locations despite disabled settings, and misled users about the privacy protections of Incognito mode, which is meant to provide private browsing.<\/p>\n

Paxton in announcing the settlement in May said that \u201cin Texas, Big Tech is not above the law.\u201d Google did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement.<\/p>\n

Texas’ legal team from 3,000-attorney Norton Rose included Joseph Graham, a litigation leader in the firm’s Houston office. Two smaller law firms, Crenshaw, Dupree & Milam and Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson, also represented the state.<\/p>\n

Norton Rose’s 2022 retainer agreement with Texas showed that it could collect as much as $3,780 an hour or 27% of any successful recovery, whichever is less.<\/p>\n

State attorneys general routinely hire private law firms to help them pursue major lawsuits against companies.<\/p>\n

Texas is working<\/a> with law firms Cooper & Kirk and Buzbee Law Firm for its antitrust lawsuit against asset managers BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street.Last year, Chicago-founded Keller Postman and Dallas-founded McKool Smith were expected to receive a combined $142.6 million<\/a> for their work on a 2022 consumer privacy lawsuit for Texas against Facebook parent Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meta agreed last year to settle the lawsuit for $1.4 billion.<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n

More lawyers join the $3,000-an-hour club, as other firms close in<\/a>Big Law rates for small firms? US appeals court takes up fee fight<\/a>Contracts in Texas’ BlackRock lawsuit show fees for private law firms<\/a>Legal Fee Tracker: Meta case yields Texas-size fees as more firms ink state contracts<\/a><\/p>\n

Reporting by Mike Scarcella<\/p>\n

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n

Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a>\"David<\/a><\/p>\n

David Thomas reports on the business of law, including law firm strategy, hiring, mergers and litigation. He is based out of Chicago. He can be reached at d.thomas@thomsonreuters.com and on Twitter @DaveThomas5150.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct 24 (Reuters) – Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google said on Friday that it has agreed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5932,15186,7358,7359,5915,15187,15188,7382,5951,7383,15196,7377,15189,5920,12486,15190,7363,5947,15191,5933,5923,7381,15195,7353,5910,7371,7365,5925,5948,15184,5937,15185,15192,15193,5929,302,27,29,28,5930,5935,393,5934,15194],"class_list":["post-19826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-amers","tag-bsup","tag-civ","tag-clj","tag-cmpny","tag-cmss","tag-dat","tag-destlit","tag-destodat","tag-destogov","tag-destoleg","tag-destolit","tag-dli","tag-gen","tag-inds","tag-iser","tag-judic","tag-legal","tag-legals","tag-namer","tag-netsv","tag-nrlinogov","tag-nrlinoleg","tag-nrlpaoconl","tag-nrlpaodat","tag-nrlpaolit","tag-pol","tag-publ","tag-reuters-legal","tag-rsbidata-privacy","tag-rulesmagnificent-seven","tag-rulesmarkets-google","tag-soci","tag-srchen","tag-swit","tag-tech","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-tmt","tag-topicworld-us-texas","tag-us","tag-usatx","tag-www"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}