Some of the firms handling the Lehman bankruptcy case have been given a right bollocking by Washington's "Pay Czar" for overspending.

Jones Day, Weil Gotshall and Millbank Tweed all came in for criticism for the amount they were billing. Amongst some of the costs that drew particular criticism were:

$263,000 for photocopying
$2,100 for just one Jones Day partner's taxi expenses over the course of just one month.
$500 a day for limos to wait for lawyers to finish their meetings at Weil (while taxis rolled past)
$364 on drycleaning to make sure Weil lawyers smelt as fresh as well-heeled daisies.

But best of all, Millbank Tweed managed to bill $148,426 for, errr, the time it took them to work out how much to bill. Well done Millbank, although they seemed to miss a trick by not charging for the time it took them to work out how much they'd charged for working out how much to bill.

That will be $3billion for meeting room refreshments

Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg said the cost "violates any sense of proportion... to be paying first-year associates $500 an hour angers the public".

Harvey Miller, a bankruptcy partner at Weil, thoughtfully summed up the firms' opinion of Feinberg: "He doesn't know what he's talking about".