The acrimonious dispute over legal fees in the Swiss banks Holocaust settlement spiked this week when one lawyer floated the idea of barring the recently indicted law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman from continued involvement in the case.

A name partner at the firm, Melvyn Weiss, was a leading attorney in the lawsuits that led to the historic $1.25 billion settlement in 1999 with Swiss banks accused of looting World War IIera accounts. Mr. Weiss recently submitted a $1.5 million fee request for his and his firm’s work in the ongoing disbursement of funds to Holocaust survivors worldwide.

But in a recent letter sent to federal court in Brooklyn, Mr. Weiss is accused of improperly billing survivors $223.75 for time spent reviewing a contentious fee request by another lawyer working on the case.

The letter drew Mr. Weiss into a bitter rivalry between two leading attorneys working on the case, Robert Swift and Burt Neuborne, who have argued for half a year over Mr. Neuborne’s application to receive $4.1 million for his work on the settlement.

The dispute has grown especially heated lately, with Mr. Neuborne calling for Mr. Swift’s removal last month from the list of court-appointed settlement counsels who assist in the distribution of the funds. On Wednesday, Mr. Swift fired back, writing that criticism of him might be better aimed at Melvyn Weiss.

“If Mr. Neuborne wants to cleanse Settlement Class Counsel, he should consider removal of Milberg Weiss which is under federal indictment,” Mr. Swift wrote.

Mr. Weiss himself has not been indicted. His firm is charged with conspiring to make illegal payments to plaintiffs in securities cases.

Mr. Weiss, who said he has not yet seen Mr. Swift’s letter, replied to the suggestion that he be expelled from the case, by saying: “I think that is a disgusting statement.”

Mr. Neuborne replied: “In his wildest dreams, Bob Swift couldn’t even carry Mel Weiss’s briefcase.”

In the letter, Mr. Swift, a class action attorney based in Philadelphia, accuses Mr. Weiss of improperly billing Holocaust survivors for time he claims Mr. Weiss spent assisting Mr. Neuborne with his fee request for $4.1 million.

Mr. Neuborne said, in a brief phone interview, that Mr. Weiss did not help him prepare his fee request.

Lawyers involved in the case have stated that hours spent litigating whether Mr. Neuborne is to receive his fee are not being directly billed to the settlement fund. The fee request has spawned its own legal proceeding, complete with additional attorneys and hundreds of pages of filings.

A review of a recent bill submitted by Mr. Weiss to U.S. District Court in Brooklyn shows that on December 23, Mr. Weiss devoted 15 minutes of his time, billed at $895 per hour, to “Review Burt Neuborne Declaration.”

Mr. Weiss said, in a telephone interview, that it was appropriate for him to bill the settlement class for time spent reviewing Mr. Neuborne’s request as it may affect the balance of the settlement fund.

“I’m sure I did it because it is an application to take money out of the fund,” he said.

Mr. Weiss said that any legal fees that he receives from his $1.5 million request will go to various charitable or nonprofit institutions, including the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, where Mr. Neuborne is the legal director.