Ford Accuses L.A. Law Firms of $100 Million Legal Fee Fraud (1)

Several Los Angeles law firms fraudulently inflated their legal fees by at least $100 million, Ford Motor Co. said in a RICO lawsuit that spans thousands of cases against auto manufacturers over the past five years.

An audit by Ford uncovered individual lawyers who said they worked more than 24 hours in a day or attended trials or depositions in opposite ends of the state at the same time, according to a complaint filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the Central District of California. It names Knight Law Group, Altman Law Group, Wirtz Law APC, and lawyers working at each firm.

For example, one Knight lawyer worked “an ostensibly heroic but physically impossible 57.5-hour workday in November 2016,” according to the complaint.

The firms “concealed their fraudulent scheme by lying and by spreading their fee claims across numerous matters involving different California courts, cases, and car company defendants,” the complaint said. “In so doing, they hoodwinked all of the judges and lawyers who were privy only to information presented in individual cases.”

The lawyers represented individual plaintiffs in Lemon Law cases, who sued over cars that came with significant defects. They worked together to submit the fraudulent hours and split the proceeds, the complaint said.

Some judges caught the overbilling and reduced the awards, but the extent of the fraud was covered because the lawyers spread it across judges and jurisdictions, the complaint said.

A spokesperson for Knight Law said in an emailed statement the lawsuit is “a thinly-veiled attempt to silence firms who would dare to hold them responsible and seek justice for consumers.”

“This lawsuit—which makes no claim that Knight Law’s clients were harmed in any way—mischaracterizes the facts, and the claim that billing practices amount to a ‘racketeering enterprise’ is ridiculous,” the statement said.

The other law firms didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP represents Ford Motor Co.

The case is Ford Motor Co. v. Knight Law Group LLP, C.D. Cal., No. 2:25-cv-04550, 5/21/25.