CLEVELAND, Ohio -- An Akron attorney who once represented Tamir Rice's family is seeking payment for his legal work and is asking a probate court judge to award him $264,225 from a $5.5 settlement the 12-year-old's estate reached with the city of Cleveland.

Walter Madison, who represented the Rice family from December 2014 through roughly mid-2015, wrote in a filing last week that he spent more than 220 hours on the phone and more than 660 hours conducting research, going to meetings and performing other duties when pursing a wrongful-death suit against the city.

In his filing, Madison writes that his work included representing Rice's family members, as well "advancement of criminal justice reform, justice, and social change."

He wrote that while representing the Rice family, contacting journalists was important to ensure that more attention was paid to police shootings involving unarmed black people, and "but for much time, preparation, research, and counseling, Tamir Rice's death undoubtedly would have been quieted and swept under the rug."

He continued, "Counsel, felt an ethical obligation, to advance this important case via any and all means available including media. The public's right to have balance in the reporting was essential from the start."

The city in April agreed to pay $6 million -- $5.5 million to Tamir Rice's estate and $250,000 each to the boy's mother and sister -- to resolve the family's lawsuit.

Officer Timothy Loehmann shot Rice in November 2014 outside Cudell Recreation Center on Cleveland's West Side. The boy had an airsoft pellet gun at the time.

Of the $5.5 million the estate will receive, one third, or $1.83 million, will likely go attorneys the family hired for the lawsuit. A Cuyahoga County Probate Court judge must approve the settlement and award any attorneys' fees.

The Rice family had three legal teams throughout the 16 months the lawsuit was litigated.

Douglas Winston, the estate's administrator, asked Judge Anthony Russo in June to approve the settlement and payment for the family's last set of lawyers, which includes Cleveland attorney Subodh Chandra, New York attorney Jonathan Abady and Chicago attorney Billy Joe Mills.

A narrative included in the June request tried to minimize the work done by the estate's previous attorneys.

Madison worked with Florida attorneys Daryl Parks and Ben Crump. The narrative said those attorneys "failed to assert the essential causes of action for wrongful death and survivorship under Ohio (law)."

It also said their claims were brought under the wrong state law to ensure that the city and its employees wouldn't be immune from the lawsuit.

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