The facts
Alabama will pay outside law firms Beasley Allen and Prince Glover Hayes $14.2 million in legal fees plus $2 million in litigation expenses under the state's $100 million settlement with TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, according to a court filing reported by Reuters on Monday.
The settlement, announced Friday just days before a scheduled trial, resolved Alabama's claims that TikTok endangered children and misled consumers about the platform's safety. It is TikTok's first settlement with a state attorney general. TikTok has denied any wrongdoing. Under the deal, TikTok must impose new usage limits and enhanced age-verification measures for users in Alabama. Alabama said it could receive up to $300 million if certain conditions are met and 40 other state attorneys general sign similar deals with the company.
Lead attorneys at both firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment, Reuters reported.
Beasley Allen, the Alabama-founded firm employing more than 100 lawyers, has a history of teaming with states on big lawsuits, including long-running claims against Johnson & Johnson over its talc-based baby powder. A judge in March disqualified the firm from representing plaintiffs in that litigation; the firm said it will appeal.
Our take
Alabama sued over claims that TikTok endangered children and misled consumers about the platform's safety, then settled days before a scheduled trial. The court filing Reuters reported Monday says the state will pay Beasley Allen and Prince Glover Hayes $14.2 million in legal fees plus $2 million in litigation expenses under that $100 million deal with TikTok and ByteDance. Fuck the halo on the caption. A child-safety case that pays the suits first is a fee schedule in a choir robe.
TikTok denied any wrongdoing and still has to impose new usage limits and enhanced age-verification for users in Alabama. Denial, a check, and a settings change. That is the whole trick, and it is the company's first settlement with a state attorney general, which sounds historic until you notice the history is mostly an invoice. The lead attorneys at both firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment. What was the comment going to be, thanks for the $14.2 million, the kids can wait on the terms?
Alabama said it could receive up to $300 million if certain conditions are met and 40 other state attorneys general sign similar deals. Read that like a man selling a pyramid drawn on a napkin. The bigger number is not cash in hand. It is a maybe, leashed to forty other offices deciding the same dance looks profitable. The $100 million settlement is the sample cup. The $300 million is the brochure.
Beasley Allen, Alabama-founded and employing more than 100 lawyers, has a history of teaming with states on big lawsuits, including long-running claims against Johnson & Johnson over its talc-based baby powder. A judge in March disqualified the firm from representing plaintiffs in that litigation. The firm said it will appeal. So the outfit now collecting millions on a case about protecting children from an app is the same outfit a judge bounced from a baby-powder case, appeal pending, fresh state client anyway. That is not a redemption arc. That is a second booth at the same carnival.
Call the silence what it is: bullshit with a retainer. The filing already talked. Fourteen point two million in fees, two million in expenses, a denial of wrongdoing, age checks limited to Alabama, and a jackpot that only fattens if forty more attorneys general join the conga line. The kids were the caption. The invoice was the plot.
