NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Times-Picayune [New Orleans LA]
January 23, 2026
By Stephanie Riegel
Six weeks ago, attorneys for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and clergy sex abuse survivors agreed to a settlement in the long-running bankruptcy of the local Roman Catholic church that will pay survivors more than $230 million.
Thursday, the two sides were back in court arguing over how much the lawyers in the case will get paid.
As of December, legal and professional fees topped $52.7 million, according to bankruptcy court documents filed in late December. That doesn’t include millions more in fee applications that have yet to be filed.
The issue of legal fees has surfaced periodically throughout the long-running case. But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill ruled in 2024 that the question of whether certain fees were excessive — and who has legal standing to challenge them — would be settled after the case was resolved, not before.
The court is revisiting the issue now that the settlement has been finalized, though survivors have yet to receive their first checks.
“I think at the end of the day, this case is going to be $60 million and six years,” said Soren Giselson, who represents dozens of survivors in the case and has been leading the effort to challenge the fees. “Legal fees have been outrageous, and they just don’t stop.”
The archdiocese on Thursday declined to comment, but pointed to remarks Archbishop Gregory Aymond made about the cost of the case in 2024, when he said he was sickened by the slow pace of progress and escalating legal bills.
“That it has taken four years is an injustice,” he said at the time.
Second-costliest in the country
When Aymond placed the archdiocese under Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection in May 2020 amid a growing number of clergy sex abuse lawsuits, he told the Vatican that the entire case — including a settlement and legal fees — was expected to cost around $7 million.
That is a fraction of what the final tally will be, not that bankruptcy cases are ever quick or cheap to settle. The complex cases typically rack up steep legal bills because they’re so complicated and can drag on for years.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans case, however, has been particularly costly because it has also been so contentious, marked by tangential legal disputes, sensational allegations and even a criminal probe.
According to Penn State Law Professor Marie T. Reilly, an expert in church bankruptcies, the New Orleans case is the second-costliest of the 40 or so church bankruptcies in the U.S., behind only Rockville Centre, New York, which cost more than $100 million.
To date, the biggest share of the legal fees in the local case has gone to Jones Walker, the archdiocese’s attorneys, which has been paid more than $16.1 million as of December, court documents show. That’s not including some 20% of fees that have been withheld by the court since a 2024 fee dispute.
What’s more, the firm has not filed a fee application with the court since last summer so it’s unclear how much more is outstanding.
In bankruptcy cases, attorneys are required to submit periodic fee applications to the court for approval since the debtor — in this case, the archdiocese — has to pay all the legal bills.
The archdiocese also has to pick up the tab for the attorneys that represent the other side in the case, or the creditors. Those firms, too, have earned millions. Troutman Pepper, a local bankruptcy firm, and Pachulski Stang, a California-based plaintiff firm, which, together, represent the court-appointed committee of abuse survivors, have been paid $5.65 million and $5.62 million, respectively, as of December, court documents show.
Stewart Robbins, which represents the small business creditors, has been paid more than $3 million.
Dozens of financial advisors, consultants, accounting firms, real estate professionals and others had been paid more than $22 million. Two high-priced mediators that helped resolve the case added to the total, billing out at $1,500 an hour and $750 an hour, though their total compensation to date is not listed in court documents.
A question of standing
Though legal fees were the underlying issue at stake in Thursday’s hearing, the specific question before the court was whether certain abuse survivors, specifically, those represented by Gisleson and other plaintiff lawyers, have legal standing to challenge the fees.
Unlike the attorneys representing the official survivors committee, Gisleson and other personal injury lawyers representing individual survivors, are paid on a contingency basis.
Gisleson argued that as creditors in the case, his clients have standing to challenge the case. Mark Mintz, who represents the archdiocese, said they do not, citing, among other things, a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Brad Knapp, who represents the court-appointed committee of abuse survivors and is at odds on the issue with Gisleson’s group, also argued that Gisleson’s clients lack standing to challenge the fees.
Even if they did, he noted, and convinced the court that certain fees were excessive and should be disallowed, those dollars would not flow to the settlement trust for survivors’ benefit.
“If some of our fees are disgorged, that goes back to the archdiocese,” Knapp said. “It doesn’t go back to the survivors. The settlement trust is what it is — $230 million.”
Later in the hearing, Mintz told the court that Traveler’s Insurance, which insured the archdiocese and its parishes during the 1970s and 1980s, had signed on to the settlement and agreed to contribute an additional $75 million, upping the trust to more than $300 million.
Knapp also pointed out that the U.S. Trustee, which oversees the case, will review all fee applications and has the legal ability to reject some or all of them.
Following the hearing, Gisleson said even if the judge finds his clients do not have standing, the issue still matters.
“It’s still dollars and law firms are bilking debtors to the detriment of the creditors,” he said.
(Editor’s Note, 1/23/26: This story was updated on 1/23 to correctly reflect Gisleson’s remarks after the hearing.)