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August 15, 2023
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LAWYER COLLECTS $18M IN FEES, THEN SUES HIS OWN CLIENT FOR ANOTHER $5.5M

By
Priscilla DeGregory


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Back to Reading
February 27, 2022 3:25pm
Updated
February 28, 2022 11:40am
Mark Perez, who won a historic $100 million lawsuit against Live Nation, is
being sued by his former lawyer for additional $5.5 million in legal fees.


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A Long Island man who was awarded a historic multimillion-dollar verdict after
fracturing his skull years ago is duking it out with his former lawyer over $5.5
million — because the attorney’s “greed knows no bounds,” new court papers
allege.

Mark Perez was sued last month by his ex-attorney Benedict Morelli — who claims
he’s entitled to the $5.5 million in legal fees, on top of the more than $18
million Perez has already paid him, according to filings in Manhattan Supreme
Court.

“I think that lawyers should be paid well for their work, a person like me needs
them to fight for them but for Mr. Morelli to take away so much of the
settlement, it just seems wrong,” Perez recently wrote to the judge who oversaw
his personal injury trial.

Perez, 38, originally received a $102 million jury verdict in 2019 after suing
Live Nation over a fall six years earlier that left him with a broken skull and
needing multiple brain surgeries. A forklift had crashed into a 10-foot-tall
booth Perez was working on, sending him plummeting at the Jones Beach Marine
Theatre.

Attorney Benedict Morelli says his former client Mark Perez owes him another
$5.5 million on top of the $18 million in legal fees he was already paid.
benedictmorelli.com

Perez and Morelli originally agreed that the notable personal injury attorney
would get one-third of the award as a contingency fee. But when the verdict went
to appeal, Morelli repeatedly tried to negotiate an additional 10 percent fee,
while Perez sought to pay the lawyer an hourly rate, according to Perez’s
counterclaims to the suit Morelli filed against him last month.

Morelli kept working the case — despite Perez allegedly never signing an
agreement over the additional fee — and eventually secured his client a $55
million settlement with Live Nation’s insurers outside of the appeal court.

In the end, Perez only received roughly $28 million from the settlement. The
$5.5 million is being held in an escrow account while Perez fights for its
return, in addition to all of the fees he paid Morelli.

“[Morelli] continues to insist that he should be paid $5.5 million for the
post-trial and appellate work (on top of the $18,333,333.30 that Mr. Perez has
already paid in legal fees), demonstrating that Morelli’s greed knows no
bounds,” Perez’s countersuit alleges.

In the letter to the judge, dated Dec. 9, Perez added, “I am the one that lives
with seizures, surgeries and the constant fear of more medical problems.

Mark Perez says the greed of his former attorney “knows no bounds” after Perez
refused to pay the additional money.

“I hope you are able to help me now by deciding what should be done here. Thank
you for hearing my trial. I’m looking forward to moving on and putting this last
upsetting situation behind me.”

Perez also claims Morelli put him in the middle of a fee dispute with his first
lawyer — a distant relative — causing a rift in his family. And Perez alleges
that Morelli didn’t inform him about several prior settlement offers post-trial.


SEE ALSO


MAN WINS $101 MILLION VERDICT FROM LIVE NATION AFTER FALL AT JONES BEACH EVENT

On Thursday, Morelli asked a judge to toss Perez’s counterclaims against him,
arguing that he never agreed to Perez’s proposed hourly pay rate for the appeal
work.

Morelli claimed that Perez “chose to remain silent” about the extra 10 percent
fee until the case had wrapped and the settlement was secured.

“Mr. Perez accepted the benefits of the firm’s work with respect to the appeal,
did not terminate the firm, and did not ask the firm to stop working on the
matter,” Morelli’s lawyers wrote in the Thursday filing. “He chose to remain
silent while the firm completed the appeal and thereby ratified the 10% fee
agreement.”

The aftermath of Perez’s fall on June 26, 2013, left him needing full-time care
and caused him to lose his long-term relationship, Morelli told The Post soon
after the verdict.

Lawyers on both sides declined to comment.




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Filed under
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 * 2/27/22

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