Ford Motor Co. is suing a prominent Los Angeles lemon law firm over alleged 7,000% toll increases, the latest effort by the company to fight California lawyers who say they are exploiting a unique state law to protect consumers from defective vehicles.
Quill & Arrow, a personal injury firm that represents motorists who sue over so-called “lemons” — vehicles with significant, irreparable manufacturing defects — has long been a thorn in Ford’s side. As of 2021, Ford says it has paid them more than $100 million, about half of the lawyer’s fee.
That profit, Ford said in a lawsuit filed Thursday, came from billing records that were “blatantly false.”
Quill & Arrow used an overseas “army” of low-wage, non-lawyers to help file thousands of arbitration cases and pretended the work was being done by California lawyers, who were paid as much as $950 an hour, the Fords said in their complaint.
Ford says most of the work is done by non-lawyers in countries like Mexico and the Philippines, where they earn as little as $13 an hour.
Quill & Arrow was founded in 2019 by lawyers Kevin Jacobson and Jonathan Shirian, according to the company’s website, which involved recovering $500 million in lemon law payments. Our colleagues called Ford’s lawsuit “more than just an attempt to silence firms that would dare to sue and seek justice for consumers.”
“It is a misrepresentation and the claim that Quill & Arrow created attorney fee records is false,” the company said in a statement.
California’s lemon law, considered one of the strongest consumer protections in the nation, allows drivers to get a refund or replacement for a broken-down vehicle if the manufacturer can’t fix it. If the driver is not satisfied, he can sue.
If the driver wins, the law allows lawyers to collect their fees from the automaker — rather than taking a percentage of the client’s winnings, as is common in personal injury cases. This financial arrangement, Ford says, has made the law a bonanza for plaintiffs’ lawyers. The longer the case drags on, the company argues, the more profit the law firm can make.
Ford claims that the company has deliberately slowed down its customers’ cases in order to increase their hours, instructing drivers not to contact Ford and forcing them to file a lawsuit.
“California’s lemon laws need to be changed and the courts need to be more vigilant, given the fraud we continue to uncover,” Doug Lampe, Ford’s attorney, said in a statement. This rule is “clearly abused by lemon law plaintiffs’ attorneys, the bar does not serve its own and courts need to guard monetary awards with more skepticism and scrutiny.”
The cases, he said, “turned into lawyers’ lawyers.”
Lemon law cases have exploded in California over the past decade from about 4,500 cases in 2015 to about 30,000 in 2024, according to the report. analysis from the Justice of the Council. These cases, officials warned, “are poised to cripple the entire public justice system in California.”
In 2024, the legislature he strengthened the rule of the kingdom of lemon, requiring additional steps before the driver can file a lawsuit. The bill appears to have covered little of the case: The Lemon Cases it went up record levels the following year.
Ford’s case is the second attempt by one of America’s largest car manufacturers to face a lawsuit against lemon lawyers in Southern California.
Ford the case A group of local lemonade companies in May 2025, accused attorneys of collecting at least $100 million in “bogus legal fees” by billing for hours they never worked. The case, which was filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, alleged that the attorneys worked together to file dozens of fraud cases with unreasonable billable hours.
A partner at Knight Law Group, an L.A.-based lemon law firm, once billed a 57.5-hour workday that “seems strong but is impossible”, says Ford.
Knight Law Group denied raising the payout, calling the lawsuit “a thinly veiled attempt to silence firms that would dare to hold themselves accountable and seek justice for consumers.”
A judge dismissed the case in March on the grounds that lawyers were protected under the First Amendment from being sued for the content of their cases unless the case was found to be fraudulent. Ford said they plan to appeal the case.
After Quill found out about the Knight Law Group lawsuit, Ford said, Quill offered the team to “scrub” their timesheets for “an impossible amount of time.”
