Irving Picard has been a machine so far in his quest to recover assets from the massive Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme and generate revenue for his law firm Baker Hostetler, where he became the king rainmaker with a single assignment.

He has sought court permission to be paid $43.8 million in legal fees for services rendered over the past six months. The total now stands at $179.7 million, which has led to lots of criticism.

At the same time, people are speculating about whether the asset recovery work is about to get harder. After recovering some $8 billion in ill-gotten gains, Picard may find clawing back nearly $20 billion more from the owners of the New York Mets, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase, among others, a much tougher task, the New York Post suggests.

"That's because Picard may have to bring some of his claims against banks, feeder funds and investors who profited from the scam in U.S. district court, rather than before a bankruptcy judge where he is on more familiar ground."

Picard may have to import some help from Baker Hostetler. He is seeking $9 billion from feeder funds connected to HSBC, $6.4 billion from JPMorgan Chase, $2 billion from UBS, $1 billion from the Mets' owners and $425 million from Citigroup, among others.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said he would consider removing certain fraud claims tied to HSBC and Unicredit from bankruptcy court to federal court.

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