Enlarge / A Volkswagen logo at a dealership in San Francisco. (credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Lawyers who won the massive $10.03 billion class-action settlement from Volkswagen Group over software that cheated on emissions tests now want their own payday: $175 million.

The extraordinary sum requires extraordinary justification, and lead plaintiffs’ counsel Elizabeth Cabraser hopes her firm’s motion (PDF) on the matter, filed late last night with the judge, will do the trick. “The aggregate fees and costs award… is the equivalent of less than 2 percent of the monetary benefit provided to the Class, far below the benchmark in this Circuit and well below the average award in ‘super-mega-fund’ settlements exceeding $1 billion,” writes Cabraser. She added that the requested fees “are the lowest ever sought in a multi-billion dollar case.”

Volkswagen was charged by regulators for creating software that would rig emissions tests, and a massive class-action suit on behalf of car owners soon followed. The company settled the case in June, agreeing to pay more than $10 billion to members of the class, which consists of people who bought 2.0L diesel cars from Volkswagen and Audi. Volkswagen, which ended FTC charges in the same settlement, will also pay $2.7 billion in fines to the EPA. The company will also be required to invest $2 billion in clean emissions research. The $175 million payment, which includes $167 million in attorneys’ fees and $8 million in costs, won’t come out of any of those pots of money.