A Denver judge has ruled civil rights firm Killmer Lane & Newman can claim nearly $3 million as its fee from a $15 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Elijah McClain’s parents when he died following an encounter with Aurora police and paramedics in August 2019. But the judge also found the firm had a conflict of interest by representing both parents, and ruled it should forfeit part of the fee from another settlement with an ambulance company that supplied ketamine used to restrain Elijah during the encounter.

The 23-year-old died at a hospital several days after he was stopped by officers while walking home from a convenience store — though he was not suspected of any crime — put in a neck hold and given a dose of ketamine by a paramedic too high for his body weight.

In 2021, Aurora agreed to pay $15 million to the McClain’s parents, Sheneen McClain and LaWayne Mosley, after they filed a wrongful death lawsuit. Killmer Lane & Newman requested $3.9 million for a previously agreed-on 40% contingency fee out of the $9.75 million share McClain received. Mosley received $5.25 million.

But in the lawsuit filed in May, Sheneen McClain accused her former attorney Mari Newman of using the high-profile tragedy of Elijah’s death to promote herself and working against Sheneen’s interests by advocating the parents split money recovered from the settlement evenly. Sheneen McClain fired Newman last year, and contended she did so for cause, arguing in her lawsuit she should not have to pay KLN the contingency fee.

She also argued representing both parents created a conflict of interest for the law firm.

Judge Ross Buchanan sided mainly with Killmer Lane & Newman in a ruling filed Wednesday. He agreed that KLN had a conflict of interest in representing both parents, but said the firm did an “extraordinary” work on the case. Buchanan noted that Newman and several other members of KLN worked on the case nearly every day during the period she represented McClain, gathering and analyzing “vast amounts” of investigatory materials and work with subject matter experts.

Out of the 40% fee amount, McClain must pay 32% to KLN and 8% to Rathod Mohamedbhai, the civil rights firm she hired after firing KLN.

However, Buchanan ruled KLN must forfeit part of its fee from another settlement with Falck, the ambulance company that supplied the ketamine leading to Elijah McClain’s death. His parents settled with Falck for $350,000. KLN should forfeit $22,785.10 of its fee, Buchanan wrote, in addition to attorney fees and costs McClain paid to her first probate lawyer and the amount of child support owed by Mosley to McClain at the time of the Falck settlement.

“Although Ms. Newman was diligent in advising both of KLN’s clients of the firm’s limited representation, and its intention to stay completely out of the allocation issue, the settlement with Falck and subsequent disbursement of the proceeds of that settlement put KLN smack dab in the middle of it,” he wrote.

Sheneen McClain said in an interview she didn’t sue KLN for money, but for accountability for what she believes is the firm’s wrongdoing. She said she had misgivings about Newman’s representation from the start when Newman insisted on representing both parents given Mosley’s absence from Elijah McClain’s life.

She said she believes KLN uses suffering of Black people for its own benefit. She’s disappointed with the judge’s ruling, and while McClain is still figuring out her next steps, she said she will continue pushing for more accountability she believes the firm should have.

“Mari Newman did everything she could to take over my son’s justice, even though I told her that wasn’t her job. She did everything she could to maintain the spotlight on herself to the point where she puts an absent parent up there to assist her in her performance.”

KLN said in a statement the firm is grateful for the court’s recognition of the “tireless” work put into McClain’s wrongful death case.

“We hope that the court’s ruling, which requires that KLN be paid for its ceaseless work in search of justice for Elijah and his parents, will allow all involved to put this part of the case behind them. KLN has spent decades fighting alongside our clients, and the struggle for constitutional rights and civil liberties is not over.”

In finding KLN did have a conflict of interest by representing both parents, Buchanan wrote McClain and Mosley had adverse interests because of McClain’s desire to divide any money from the lawsuit based on each parent’s contribution to raising Elijah. He noted that McClain raised Elijah as a single mother, that Mosley denied paternity until a test in Elijah’s preteen years proved it, and Mosley’s failure to pay ordered child support in full.

Buchanan wasn’t convinced by KLN’s argument that the firm avoided conflict of interest by limiting its representation of both parents to securing money from the lawsuit’s claims, and advising each of them to seek their own separate attorneys to represent them in the division of money in probate court.

“The inevitable question was how any such money recovered in the case would be divided up as between the people who had diametrically opposed views on the matter, and in addition, did not like each other,” he wrote. “To believe that issues pertaining to the ultimate division of any recovery could simply be delayed until the end of the case, or at least until probate counsel was involved, is extremely unrealistic.”

But Buchanan wrote the conflict “snuck up” on KLN, given Newman’s perception from her initial meeting with the parents that the two got along.

“This court concludes that Ms. McClain would be unfairly or unjustly enriched if she does not pay a fee to KLN,” he wrote.