LOS ANGELES -- Only 10 percent of 300,000 former Los Angeles county jail inmates eligible to share a $27 million judgment for wrongful incarceration and illegal searches have filed claims.

The remaining 270,000 have until Sept. 20 to make a claim or else they will lose their portion of the settlement, said attorney Barry Litt, who represented the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit.

The county Board of Supervisors agreed in August 2001 to the settlement.

County sheriff's department officials blamed clerical errors for detaining scores of inmates beyond their release dates between 1996 and 2001. In some cases, inmates were wrongly incarcerated because of erroneous warrants.

Sixty-two former inmates named in the lawsuit were expected to receive the largest portion of the money, but other former inmates could receive between $50 and $5,000 apiece, attorneys said.

"There are far too many who haven't filed claims," said Julia White, a paralegal who worked on the case. "Too many are going to lose out on things they earned the hard way."