By slashing $15 million in fees from Labaton Sucharow LLP and Thornton Law Firm LLP for a $300 million State Street Corp. settlement, a federal judge sent a sharp warning to the class action bar to remain vigilant about attorney fee fundamentals, or else risk an embarrassing and possibly expensive fight.

Double checking lodestar calculations before submitting a fee request, signing off on fee declarations, being careful about referrals and erring on the side of disclosure seem like routine activities for class action firms. But if major players in the field like Labaton and Thornton can get slapped down by a federal judge for falling short on the basics, it should catch the attention of other firms across the bar, experts told Law360.

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“Lawyers should not behave this way,” said Deborah Hensler, a professor at Stanford Law School. “This is not the way that this powerful tool is intended to be used. When leading class action firms appear to have been engaged in self-serving behavior, whether or not it complies with a narrow definition of the rules, it’s highly inappropriate and it weakens the arguments for continuing to use class actions.”