Baltimore’s outside counsel in its $45 million settlement with pharmaceutical company Allergan will receive roughly $20 million, while the rest will go to programs that help people struggling with opioid use disorder, Mayor Brandon Scott said.

The fees for the attorneys used to fight the case against Allergan represent about 44% of the settlement. That might seem like a lot of money, Scott said, but the outside counsel fronted all expenses associated with the pricey lawsuit, including expert fees and countless depositions over the course of six years. Baltimore only had to pay up because it secured money from the settlement.

Such payments are normal for contingent litigation, the city’s law department said in a statement.

Allergan has already sent Baltimore the historic payout, and the city’s finance department is processing it, the Democratic mayor said. In the city’s settlement agreement with Allergan, announced last month, officials agreed to commit at least $5 million of the money to the Peer Navigator Program and $5 million to Charm City Care Connection — programs in Baltimore that provide support to people struggling with substance use disorders and, in Charm City’s case, harm reduction services.

Of the remaining money in the settlement, Scott said, $15 million will be used to fund an update to the city’s overdose strategic plan, create an opioid fund managed by the Mayor’s Office of Recovery Programs, and fund programs focused on prevention, education, treatment and recovery.

Bill Carmody, a partner at the New York firm Susman Godfrey, leads the city’s outside legal team, along with partners Seth Ard and Sy Polky. Sara Gross and Thomas Webb from the city’s law department also represent the city in the case.

“This case is monumental, and we are up against some of the largest, most determined corporations in the world,” Scott said Wednesday at a news conference. “We declined to take the global settlement that would have given us pennies on the dollar to what we received, because we knew — contrary to some reporting and popular belief that I should join everyone else in the lawsuit — we know how bad this crisis is impacting Baltimore families and how badly we need the resources to combat it.”

What the city received from Allergan is more than the $38 million settlement Maryland reached with the pharmaceutical company earlier this year. And if Baltimore had joined other state and local governments in a global settlement, it would have received a payout of about $7 million spread over seven years. Even with the $20 million Baltimore gave to outside counsel, the city brought in more money in a lump sum by going its own way.

Baltimore has been ravaged by the opioid epidemic. Between 2017 and 2021, opioid-related deaths in the city, which has about 10% of the state’s population, accounted for 38.4% of Maryland’s total opioid-related deaths, according to state data.

With the Allergan settlement money, Scott said, “we’re finally gaining the resources we need to make a real dent in this crisis.”

It represented the largest settlement secured in Baltimore history, and the work continues for the city’s legal team. According to a news release when the city announced the settlement, Allergan’s two opioid drugs made up less than half a percent of the opioids sent to Baltimore pharmacies.

The remaining defendants in the city’s ongoing litigation against opioid manufacturers and distributors were responsible for more than 80% of opioids sent to pharmacies in Baltimore, the release said. That suggests, the city news release said, that the city’s entire lawsuit is likely worth billions of dollars.