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	Judge Urges Resolution of Diocese Dispute By Paul A. Long Cincinnati Post [Kentucky] March 10, 2007 http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070310/NEWS01/703100343 A Northern Kentucky judge on Friday told attorneys bickering over more than $18 million in fees from the settlement of a lawsuit against the Diocese of Covington to quit harping on side issues and get to the heart of the matter. Special Judge Robert McGinnis said disputes over who is named in the lawsuit and details about legal procedure are sidestepping the main issue. He told them to quickly settle those disputes, and he set a trial date for May 8 to hear the case. "Now you can push all this technical crap all you want, but I've had enough of it," he said during a hearing in Boone Circuit Court. "Zero in on what's important: What's the agreement between these people? ... (If there is one), what's the value of her services?" He referred to Covington attorney Barbara Bonar, who has sued Stan Chesley and Cincinnati his law firm, contending she is entitled to some of the legal fees. Chesley and his partners said she shouldn't get anything. Bonar was one of the original attorneys to file the class-action lawsuit, which alleged a 50-year cover-up of sexual abuse by priests and other employees of the diocese. She said she did much of the preliminary work in finding clients and gaining access to records of the diocese. She was later forced out of the case, she said, in a dispute over the way Chesley and his partner, Robert Steinberg, were handling it. But Chesley said she did little work and forfeited any right to fees when she left the case over a conflict of interest. The case was eventually settled for $84 million. Attorneys are taking 22 percent, which the previous judge - Special Judge John Potter of Louisville - determined was a fair and appropriate amount. The money is being put into an escrow account until the dispute is settled, Steinberg told McGinnis. If the entire $84 million - which is to come from diocese coffers and the diocese's insurance carriers - is paid out, the attorneys' fees will come to just under $18.5 million. Potter has since retired, and McGinnis - a circuit judge who regularly presides in Harrison, Pendleton, Nicholas, and Robertson counties - was assigned to take over the case. He previously told attorneys he thought their dispute was an embarrassment to the profession and "detestable" to the public. He has encouraged a settlement, but that has failed to happen. He said he will hear the case without a jury on May 8, and expects it to be over in two days.
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