https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200819/17571245149/copyright-troll-richard-liebowitz-reveals-his-retainer-agreement-he-gets-most-money.shtml

We noted last week that Judge Lewis Kaplan (like so many other judges who have copyright troll Richard Liebowitz in their courts) was fed up with Richard Liebowitz's unwillingness to follow fairly straightforward orders, including that he produce the retainer agreement with his clients, as well as present evidence that the client knew of and approved the specific lawsuits at hand. Judge Kaplan did this in at least two (and possibly more?) cases. In the case we mentioned last week -- the Chosen Figure LLC v. Smiley Miley case -- despite already receiving a benchslap from the judge for not providing the retainer agreement, Liebowitz has filed some random emails between his own staff and... his client's girlfriend? That does include an email from his client saying he doesn't check email much so to have his girlfriend on email chains instead, though it's not clear that this will be enough to satisfy the judge's request for authorization for "this case specifically," but we'll see.

However, much more interesting is that, for what appears to be the first time, Liebowitz has revealed his retainer agreement with clients. And, man, do his clients get a raw deal. Liebowitz gets 50% of any proceeds after costs which come out of any settlement received. In other words, more than half (potentially a lot more than half) of the money from any settlement goes to Liebowitz. That would mean that Richard Liebowitz has a larger financial stake in the outcome of these cases than his own clients.