J&J Talc Group’s Bid to Hire Big Law Firms Prompts DOJ Challenge

Brown Rudnick LLP and Paul Hastings LLP can’t represent a talc claimants’ committee for Johnson & Johnson’s bankrupt subsidiary unless they forgo around $5.6 million for services they provided to other creditors, the Justice Department’s bankruptcy unit said.

The law firms are owed “significant sums” for their representation of two other groups as part of previous bankruptcy attempts by J&J units, the US Trustee said in an objection filed Tuesday in US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

The debts owed to the law firms give them an adverse interest to the official talc claimant committee in the ...