A New Jersey judge ordered two law firms to pay $1.96 million in legal fees after sanctioning them for filing frivolous litigation they pursued on behalf of billionaire Ronald Perelman.

Superior Court Judge Ellen Koblitz imposed the fees on Paul Weiss Rifkin Wharton & Garrison LLP of New York and Lowenstein Sandler PC of Roseland, New Jersey. Koblitz ruled the firms filed a frivolous amended complaint for the estate of Perelman’s late wife, Claudia Cohen, in seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from her father, Robert Cohen, and brother James Cohen.

The judge said the evidence in the case should have convinced the firms that Robert Cohen didn’t make an oral promise before 1978 to leave Claudia as much of his estate as James would get. Koblitz said Paul Weiss, which made $650 million in revenue in 2009, and Lowenstein Sandler, which made $183 million, were unrepentant.

“A monetary sanction will discourage a repetition of frivolous litigation, especially in light of the lack of acknowledgement of wrongdoing,” Koblitz ruled Aug. 20 in Hackensack, New Jersey. “Without remorse, or any acknowledgement of wrongdoing, how can they reassure the court that this behavior will not reoccur?”

Koblitz, who dismissed the lawsuit last year after a trial, said that while Lowenstein Sandler now has an internal method to safeguard against frivolous litigation, Paul Weiss claims it has never been sanctioned for that reason in the 100-year history of the firm.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-27/law-firms-paul-weiss-lowenstein-sandler-sanctioned-in-perelman-case.html