Lil Wayne secured a legal victory in New York as a judge ruled his former attorney Ron Sweeney isn’t entitled to a $20 million contingency fee.
Lil Wayne walked away with a courtroom win in New York after a judge ruled his ex-attorney Ron Sweeney isn’t entitled to a $20 million cut from the rapper’s past deals.
The decision, handed down Tuesday by Judge James D’Auguste, ends a drawn-out legal clash that began in 2018 when Wayne fired Sweeney and later sued him over what he called an “exorbitant” 10% contingency fee.
That rate, Wayne argued, was double the industry standard for entertainment lawyers.
Wayne contends that over the course of their 13-year professional relationship, he overpaid Sweeney and that no further compensation is owed.
Sweeney had represented him from 2005 until his firing in 2018, a period that saw Wayne’s rise to Hip-Hop royalty.
Sweeney responded with his own lawsuit, demanding a multimillion-dollar payout from transactions he claimed to have helped set up before his termination.
These included a confidential settlement with Cash Money Records and the nine-figure sale of Young Money’s master recordings to Universal Music Group.
But the court wasn’t buying it.
The judge also blocked Sweeney from accessing discovery related to Wayne’s profits from those deals, limiting him to only seeking “reasonable fees” that must be supported by evidence.
Wayne’s attorney, Jonathan Davis, praised the outcome, telling Billboard, “After an almost seven-year battle in multiple courts in New York and California, lawyers can rest a little easier. The rule of law still matters and will be applied faithfully by courts.”
The legal battle adds to Wayne’s long history of courtroom fights tied to his music empire.
From 2015 to 2018, he was locked in a $51 million lawsuit against Cash Money over withheld royalties and delayed album releases.
The ruling arrives as Wayne continues to expand his business ventures. He recently sold his Young Money catalog to Universal for over $100 million.
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