After five law firms pitched Harrisburg City Council to help the financially beleaguered city through a potential bankruptcy, one of the council members said in media reports the city would look to negotiate the proposed hourly rates, which ranged by firm from $200 to $975 an hour.
Negotiate they did. The city has chosen New York heavy-hitter Cravath Swaine & Moore to represent it through either a Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy or a move to a distressed municipality status under Pennsylvania’s Act 47. It was assumed at the time that Cravath, the largest of the five firms to pitch the city, was the one with the $975 hourly rate. But that doesn’t matter now that the firm has decided to represent the city pro bono in what the law firm called “one of its most significant public service commitments in years.”
