member question - challenging attorneys fee petitions
The Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia would like to hear from any other office that has challenged the reasonableness of an attorney's billing rate in a fee petition. Specifically, in jurisdictions that do not use the US Attorney's Office Laffey Matrix, we would like information on what courts look at when making a determination regarding the reasonableness of the rates requested by attorneys. Additionally, we would like to know if any jurisdictions have resolved questions regarding reasonable rates of attorney's fees through legislation, and we would be interested in hearing from anyone who has experience using outside vendors to analyze fee petitions received from opposing counsel. Please direct all responses to stephanie.litos@dc.govmailto:stephanie.litos@dc.gov.
BTW, this will be a topic we will include in the IMLA Seminar in April and I'm looking for speakers, so get back to me as well. Chuck
Charles W. Thompson, Jr.
Executive Director and General Counsel
International Municipal Lawyers Association, Inc.
51 Monroe Street, Suite 404
Rockville, Maryland 20850
202-466-5424 x7110
Direct: 202-742-1016
Cell: 240-876-6790
Plan ahead:
IMLA's Annual Conference September 28 - October 2, 2016 - San Diego
IMLA's Section 1983 Litigation Defense and Annual Seminar April 20-24, 2017- Omni Shoreham, DC
$350/hr is pretty common in the Northern District of Texas. I made an argument recently that rate should be lower, more comparable to "insurance defense" rates often paid to outside counsel that we use. I supported the fee rate challenge with affidavits and invoices. The Court didn't buy it. My experience is that the Courts rely heavily on their own experience.
Robert
Robert Fugate
Deputy City Attorney
City of Arlington
Phone (817) 459-6878
Fax (817) 459-6897
[http://www.texasbar.com/AM/images/siteimages/TBLS-Logo-tag-R.gif]http://www.tbls.org/profile/attorney.aspx?bid=42519
Board Certified - Civil Appellate Law
Texas Board of Legal Specialization
[http://www.arlingtontx.gov/email/COA%20logo.png]http://www.arlingtontx.gov/
TRCP 192.5 Privileged Communication
This e-mail may contain confidential and privileged material for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review, use, distribution or disclosure by others is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and delete all copies of this message.
From: Federal [mailto:federal-bounces@lists.imla.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2016 9:34 AM
To: cityattorneys@lists.imla.org; ATTY-LIST@LISTSERV.MUNICODE.COM; federal@lists.imla.org
Subject: [Federal] member question - challenging attorneys fee petitions
The Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia would like to hear from any other office that has challenged the reasonableness of an attorney's billing rate in a fee petition. Specifically, in jurisdictions that do not use the US Attorney's Office Laffey Matrix, we would like information on what courts look at when making a determination regarding the reasonableness of the rates requested by attorneys. Additionally, we would like to know if any jurisdictions have resolved questions regarding reasonable rates of attorney's fees through legislation, and we would be interested in hearing from anyone who has experience using outside vendors to analyze fee petitions received from opposing counsel. Please direct all responses to stephanie.litos@dc.govmailto:stephanie.litos@dc.gov.
BTW, this will be a topic we will include in the IMLA Seminar in April and I'm looking for speakers, so get back to me as well. Chuck
Charles W. Thompson, Jr.
Executive Director and General Counsel
International Municipal Lawyers Association, Inc.
51 Monroe Street, Suite 404
Rockville, Maryland 20850
202-466-5424 x7110
Direct: 202-742-1016
Cell: 240-876-6790
Plan ahead:
IMLA's Annual Conference September 28 - October 2, 2016 - San Diego
IMLA's Section 1983 Litigation Defense and Annual Seminar April 20-24, 2017- Omni Shoreham, DC
