A recent Pennsylvania District Court decision awarded attorneys’ fees in the amount of $70,948.89, which constituted a 50% reduction of the $140,682.00 originally requested. The federal judge ruled that the fees were duplicative, unnecessary, and unreasonable due to the amount of hours spent on the same type of work, redundant staffing at hearings, and the […] Read More...
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In a July 2014 decision in a disability access case, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California reduced the amount of attorney fees sought by the plaintiff from $1,444,513.84 to $758,153.89. The Court used a two-step method to calculate a reasonable fee award. The first step was to determine a presumptive fee […] Read More...
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In a June, 2013 decision, the Supreme Court of Ohio, in the case of Disciplinary Counsel v Tomson, 990 NE2d 579 [2013], affirmed permanent disbarment of the attorney, due to violations of the ethical rules. In this case, disciplinary proceedings were brought against the attorney who failed to pursue a post-conviction relief on behalf of […] Read More...
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In late June, 2014 a California District Court Judge, assessing an attorney fees request by Apple’s counsel in the ongoing litigation against Samsung, slashed objectionable time entries by 20% and discounted expenses associated with first class airfare and other travel.[1] The attorney fees at issue in the case arose from the Court’s January order awarding […] Read More...
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In a February 2012 decision concerning New York’s Lemon Law, the Queens County Supreme Court awarded attorney fees in the amount of $22,765.50, which constituted a 45% reduction of the $50,590 originally requested. The court held that such reduction was warranted due to excessiveness, padding (i.e. hours that are excessive or otherwise unnecessary) and general […] Read More...
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On March 28, 2014, the Georgia Supreme court disbarred an attorney for overbilling her client, misleading the court about how much she earned in fees, and fabricating inaccurate billing statements. The 4-2 decision agrees with the recommendation of a special master who conducted an investigation of the attorney’s conduct in response to a grievance a former client […] Read More...
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A recent district court case in Georgia, Bird v. Sumter County School District,[1] took an interesting approach to block billing. As defined by the Court, block billing is “a practice of logging hours whereby activities are grouped together without regard to their similarity.” Because block billing makes it difficult or impossible for a court to […] Read More...
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A fee award in a recent case in the Eastern District of New York, Claudio v. Mattituck-Cutchogue Union Free School District, provided examples of several common problems with attorney billing records. Though the court found that the attorney’s hourly rate of $395 was reasonable, the court significantly reduced the number of hours billed because of […] Read More...
In a set of recent decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has changed the legal test for awarding attorney fees in patent cases.[1] The current fee shifting provision of the Patent Act provides that “[t]he court in exceptional cases may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party.”[2] Until recently, to shift attorney fees to a […] Read More...
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A fee award in a recent case in the Eastern District of New York, Claudio v. Mattituck-Cutchogue Union Free School District, provided examples of several common problems with attorney billing records. Though the court found that the attorney’s hourly rate of $395 was reasonable, the court significantly reduced the number of hours billed because of […] Read More...
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