Tribune's legal fees

They're monumental - $138 million, or about one-quarter of the company's cash flow last year, the Chicago Tribune reports. Sidley Austin, the lead debtor's attorney, is closing in on $25 million, which isn't that surprising when you consider that 160 people at the firm have spent the equivalent of 4.6 years on the case - at an average rate of $500 an hour.

As big as those numbers are, experts agree, the spending is hardly unusual. Major cases in recent years -- such as Enron ($793 million), United Airlines ($296 million) and Delphi (just under $400 million) -- have been colossally expensive. And the monstrous Lehman Bros. case, now underway in New York, will dwarf all of those. After just 17 months Lehman has generated fees of $457 million, and that jumps to more than $700 million if management fees earned by restructuring specialist Alvarez & Marsal are included.