Elouise Cobell's fees need some documentation

Elouise Cobell recently stated that she had worked this case for 14 years. She stated that the fees for this cause are relatively small in comparison. There a couple of other important things that are pretty small in comparison. If she had personally lost 15 million in land revenue, fine, lets see it. If she personally lost 15 million litigating this, fine let see it. But if she's just representing a bunch of us to inflate what she gets, then that would be another story.

So what are the "estimated earnings" of her organization the Blackfeet Reservation Development Fund? She makes inference that her BRDF funded much of her efforts to argue this case. Dunn and Bradstreet have her annual sales as low as $310,000. Manta.com has her between $500,000 and 1 million in annual sales. Well, if she's selling her Consulting services, to us the land owners, then I'd say we don't owe 15 million. We owe a max of 14 million and minimum according to Dunn and Bradstreet of $4,340,000 million.

As evidenced by some of the tax returns she filed, Dennis Gingold has already been paid too. And she got some hefty grants or public support for quite a bit of money that should already be deducted from what we, the land owners, owe her.

Looking through the tax returns on NCCS the National Center For Charitable Statistics I can only see one year that we, the land owners, owe to any "contractor": Dennis Gingold in 2008 accrued fees of $157,050. dollars in legal fees. Well now that seems reasonable. We also paid for CRA to come in and do some work. Then we had an accountant check the numbers too. But what about Elouise Cobell, doesn't she deserve some pay?

Well agreeably she does. But for what? She works according to her tax returns for a little as one hour a week. In the most recent tax returns she has doubled her work load to 2 hours a week. Now if she didn't get paid for all those years of work at two hours per week, (the tax returns show she didn't receive any compensation), then that's not the land owner's fault. Apparently she chose not to argue for compensation for all the years of tax returns on display at the NCCS site.

Or did she presume that if she got a giant win for all land owners that we would just give her 15 million?

Did this Blackfeet Reservation Development Corporation devote its entire existence to fighting this law suit? No education went toward its own reservation, no resources helped its own local community members out with some economic development ideas?

She deserves $25 dollars an hour for each year of the 14 years of litigation. It's the least we can do. That would bring her total up to $728,000 total. That seems fair, especially since she never told us that she was going to charge us after the fact.

You can't have it both ways, either you go the organization to compell them to pay you or you "suck it up and drive on." But don't expect me to have my name and all the oblivious land owners' names used to make you a millionaire after you received millions of dollars in public support or grants and managed to get by somehow. Or are there some fancy receipts that aren't showing up on your tax returns? Maybe you can have it both ways. Tell this judge what you think you are owed, and then tell us what you got. Some of us will judge the character of this incident by the transparency of the entire cast of actors. Make believers of us all and show how you lost 15 million arguing this case. My bet is that the GRANTS to your organization will more than cover what you claimed. Not all land owners are convinced and will wait for the transparency to prove your case.

Good luck with that.