To add (just) insult to (just) injury, a Florida judge awarded $518,301 to Angela Williams’s attorneys (PDF link). Ms. Williams recently won almost $3 million in a lawsuit against Equifax for Equifax’s refusal to fix her credit report after her identity was stolen.

While it may not be obvious when a consumer receives such a high verdict, without attorney fee awards, most attorneys would not be able to bring lawsuits against credit reporting bureaus like Equifax, unscrupulous debt collectors, mortgage fraudsters, and other consumer predators. As the 11th Circuit said over two decades ago, “[t]he award of attorney fees, as a practical matter, is a critical and integral part of [the creation of a system of private attorneys general.]”

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