Linda Will’s six-year legal odyssey, which began shortly after the death of her son during a Northwestern football practice, has taken another twist.
One of the lawyers she had fired, Benjamin Obi Nwoye, filed a breach-of-contract suit in U.S. District Court alleging that he is owed at least $4.8 million for his services and that of a colleague, A. Denison Weaver, who died in July. The suit states that Will dismissed the lawyers “without good cause.”
Nwoye claimed in the suit, filed Friday, that Will had agreed to pay the lawyers one-third of any settlement reached with Northwestern over the death of her son, Rashidi Wheeler, who died during an illegal preseason practice in 2001.
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Circuit Judge Kathy Flanagan ordered the case settled in 2005 for $16 million, with Will and her two sons receiving more than $12 million and her ex-husband getting the rest. Flanagan also ordered Will to pay one-third of her proceeds to the Cochran and Montgomery law firm, which helped negotiate the court-ordered settlement before Will fired the firm and hired Nwoye.