An unusually bitter dispute over legal fees finally came to a close yesterday, when a law professor was awarded $3.1 million for his role in a lawsuit brought by Holocaust survivors against several Swiss banks.

Perhaps what was most remarkable about the dispute was how incensed a contingent of Holocaust survivors became at the prospect that the professor, Burt Neuborne of New York University, would be paid for his work on the case.

“I was troubled at their anger,” Mr. Neuborne said yesterday. “The last thing I wanted was to have Holocaust survivors angry at me. That’s not why I did all this work.” At issue was whether Mr. Neuborne could bill for several thousand hours spent helping to disburse to survivors the $1.25 billion settlement won from the banks. Some survivors said Mr. Neuborne had pledged he would do the work for free. Mr. Neuborne claims his offer to work for free extended to the point of the settlement in 1998, and that he was free to bill for subsequent legal work.

Opposition to the fee was also fueled by discontent over the professor’s role in steering hundreds of millions of dollars to needy survivors in Russia. Some believed the distribution neglected American survivors.

The fee dispute dragged on for two years. In awarding $3.1 million yesterday, a federal judge in Brooklyn, Frederic Block, wrote: “the parties have recognized that the time has come for there to be peace, or in language more befitting for the victims of the Holocaust, shalom b’byat.”