A Denver judge has ruled civil rights firm Killmer Lane & Newman can claim about $3 million as its fee from a $15 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Elijah McClain’s parents when he died following an encounter with Aurora police in August 2019.

The 23-year-old died at a hospital several days after he was stopped by officers while walking home from a convenience store – though he was not suspected of any crime – put in a neck hold and given a dose of ketamine too high for his body weight.

In November 2021, Aurora agreed to pay $15 million to the McClain’s parents, Sheneen McClain and LaWayne Mosley, after they filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Killmer Lane & Newman requested $3.9 million for a previously agreed-on 40% contingency fee out of the $9.75 million share McClain received. Mosley received $5.25 million.

Aurora agrees to pay $15 million settlement for Elijah McClain’s death

But in the lawsuit filed in May, Sheneen McClain accused her former attorney Mari Newman of giving her bad legal advice and of using the high-profile tragedy of Elijah McClain to promote herself. McClain fired Newman last year, and contended she did so for cause, arguing in her lawsuit she should not have to pay KLN the contingency fee.

She also argued representing both parents created a conflict of interest for the law firm.

Judge Ross Buchanan sided mainly with Killmer Lane & Newman in a ruling filed Wednesday. He agreed that KLN had a conflict of interest in representing both parents, but said the firm did an “extraordinary” work on the case. Buchanan noted that Newman and several other members of KLN worked on the case nearly every day during the period she represented McClain, gathering and analyzing “vast amounts” of investigatory materials and work with subject matter experts.

Elijah McClain’s mother fighting former attorney over $4M in legal fees

Out of the 40% fee amount, McClain must pay 32% to KLN and 8% to Rathod Mohamedbhai, the civil rights firm she hired after firing KLN.

KLN said in a statement the firm is grateful for the court’s recognition of the “tireless” work put into McClain’s wrongful death case.

“We hope that the court’s ruling, which requires that KLN be paid for its ceaseless work in search of justice for Elijah and his parents, will allow all involved to put this part of the case behind them. KLN has spent decades fighting alongside our clients, and the struggle for constitutional rights and civil liberties is not over.”

The Denver Gazette has also reached out to an attorney for McClain for comment.

In finding KLN did have a conflict of interest by representing both parents, Buchanan wrote McClain and Mosley had adverse interests because of McClain’s desire to divide any money from the lawsuit based on each parent’s contribution to raising Elijah. He noted that McClain raised Elijah as a single mother, that Mosley denied paternity until a test in Elijah’s preteen years proved it, and Mosley’s failure to pay ordered child support in full.

Buchanan wasn’t convinced by KLN’s argument that the firm avoided conflict of interest by limiting its representation of both parents to securing money from the lawsuit’s claims, and advising each of them to seek their own separate attorneys to represent them in the division of money in probate court.

“The inevitable question was how any such money recovered in the case would be divided up as between the people who had diametrically opposed views on the matter, and in addition, did not like each other,” he wrote. “To believe that issues pertaining to the ultimate division of any recovery could simply be delayed until the end of the case, or at least until probate counsel was involved, is extremely unrealistic.”

But Buchanan wrote the conflict “snuck up” on KLN, given Newman’s perception from her initial meeting with the parents that the two got along.

“This court concludes that Ms. McClain would be unfairly or unjustly enriched if she does not pay a fee to KLN,” he wrote.

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