fourteen forty three forty four forty one thirty to forty one thirty three fifteen thirty two ninety five thirty two ninety six thirty three eighty may please the court exactly kalar on behalf of the state defendants reserving three minutes for about all this court needs to look under the hood of this multimillion dollar field why it needs to examine the details because the details are honesty of whether these hours were put in our challenges fall into the billing judgement category and what coulter says is this court needs to rely on its experience and examination of the record which is what we're asking this court to do to decide whether the district court  work through the hearings observe the missions and advocate that person really in the best position to make these calls your honor the abuse of discretion were standard were under certainly assumes that the district court is the closest to the case and and so that's our standard we're what your discretion i think he abused his discretion both in misapplying attorney feel lot of these facts and reaching a clear error of judgment in awarding over six thousand hours in this case is f main case litigation that lasted only slightly over a year year but but there were more than one more year involved if it was one lawyer i would agree with you there were many more than one lawyer it was a pretty fast case that required a lot of attorney time where is the abuse of discretion you still haven't told me you don't you are started out saying we're not quarrelling with the hours i thought that was your first sentence you know your honor we're certainly quarrelling with the hours we think the court needs to look into the details in this case based on our well developed a new law that says the appellate court looks through the details of the don't we rely on the district court unless you can show in the use of discretion your honor coulter says the way just let me say this it's not an abuse of discretion because you don't like the hours or the money that's put in and what causes conclusory allegations to those hours we provided a detailed road map an overview that showed along every step of the way for each litigation task these these attorneys overstaffed and or over lawyer their projects there's a snowball effect going on here your honor when you look at a billing entry what might appear to be a reasonable billing entry for a reasonable task in isolation builds and builds when you keep adding layer upon layer of internal conference scene and a dean strategy conferences researching  also a partisan battle in connection with the two thousand and twelve election about it and the battle was about election law and the state was going and it was mainly partners that look like to me you agree with you and i don't agree that the state defendants in this case should be billing being billed for litigation against other parties like the the two ohio legislators that actually brought this state court action against the secretary who is now being billed for the hours but i think that nothing about the nature of this case justify the type of hours in the lack of billing judgment or scene we're seeing thirteen attorneys saying that the abuse of discretion by the judge is that the judge disagreed or reject their argument and that's not a classic abuse of discretion is that you know your honor and i don't think that's what we're saying i think what we're saying is under any level of professional judgment when you look at the types of hours that were being billed in this case is that so that's how outside of the district court zone or range of plausible decision making where it could find this was a reasonable fee i also think there's going back to the point you just made if you have a complex fast moving case in the way you quarrel with the number of people on the telephone call they were sponsoring to a band that the issues were divided up they require it i mean it responds the duties were allocated and so the people responsible for those issues had to be in the room listening for that they could immediately respond to those issues that fit with reasonable under the circumstances why is it not reasonable you and i point the court to a comparison because this is certainly expedited litigation but you know we also had two recent same sex marriage cases in ohio that were also expedited litigation and we recently received a fee application for those cases those case lasted longer and they went all the way to the supreme court less than half the hours we're talking about in this case that type of gap shouldn't be there also if you look at hunter which was also expedited litigation that he had charged t marches this group would say this was reasonable i think your honor the comparison certainly allow us to give us a sense of the comparison where there were more expensive than i think it would certainly give more credit to the idea that six thousand hours in mostly six months of litigation is a reasonable five thousand four hundred hours in this case were put in a six month time period that is thirty hours every day seven days a week for an entire six months this is beyond what you would expect lawyers to be putting in even in a expedited litigation case if you look at hunter that case involved very similar legal issues it lasted longer than this case and it also had a twelve day permanent injunction hearing you feel like i feel like you're in some ways i've argued with you but this is the argument that you made in the district court and we rejected it and presumably yes and  to the producer decision the whole purpose of the lodestar method and were in the load start method there was no question of an upward adjustment here is to cabin the distress discretion of trial judges so that there's adequate appellate review and so that we're not having feel wards based on subjective opinions about particular attorneys or a particular case in this case when you do comparisons to other cases but also when you just look at the hours and apply the professional judgment of how much time should a task he's we have over six hundred fifty hours of in i'm going to you only get substantial discretion if you offer an adequate explanation if you look at the district court as in pinion it wasn't engaging with the arguments we were making there's very little discussion of the hour totals an issue and i think telling part of the district court's order is the statement that we were lying on the insinuation that we were relying on conclusory allegations it's page nine of the opinion of the district court also but we should i think a fifty percent reduction is justified in this case absolutely or absolutely your honor i think that brings us in line with a very similar case like hunter where you had half the hours at issue in this case even though it was longer end which is a far beyond any proceeding that took place in either of these cases well you know the district court made some statements did say that  all of these attorneys were necessary at the various conferences district court stated that the review plans documentation included and concluded that the hours were actually a that's what they're actually and reasonably expected actually but one of the that's the court's conclusion statement your honor but that's not showing that engage with the actual arguments that we are making i would  this court still found was not adequate explanation that's because you were in an extreme situation in that case it was a large reduction in this case it's a very large field ward with over five thousand four hundred hours coming within a six month period that type of total should raise eyebrows that should read to further review then basically what the district court did if you look through pages eight and nine of its opinion which was essentially say i've reviewed the hours they look reasonable and defendants are raising conclus allegations that's not what happened in this case if that's conclusory and that's not appropriate go back again to the position of my colleagues how do we as the appellate court what do we what do we look to debase a fifty percent reduction what do we have the force that would allow us to make that kind of a calculation would we have to in effect send it back that they have the district court make that that kind of adjustment  no you wouldn't have to send it back i'd appoint the court to the eleventh circuit decision environs in that case the court recognize that you just had ours that were out of step with what professional judgment would allow and if you looked at page one fifty one of the quarter decision it said that that's how appellate courts are supposed to review this they rely on their experience and their record to tell whether the reasonable billing practices of the profession were exercised and coulter made clear that there will be times when a no across the board reduction has to be made it's going to be abuse of discretion not to make a substantial cross the border duction this is one of those cases you're thinking litigation it started with an emergency basis we were called in the need to go back to the district court and try to enjoin one way or another either through the all writs act or through a contempt motion the attempt of the state of ohio to defy a district court order which covered some of the votes in question by running to the state supreme court and trying to get an immediate decision and in the pointer case which was which was i didn't represent them but they were a party i represented the unions that came into this case one of which had been the case before hand as you know you local level ninety nine but the reason for so many lawyers was many full first we had to go to the state supreme court to go to the district court get the district court to enjoin a state court proceeding and we had to do it right away because in this previous case i think was the painter of the poynter case in the supreme court they decided in the original writ on the same issue exemptin consent decree in three weeks and they wanted an order to the secretary of state to defy the consent decree so we we prepared an intervention for the state supreme court we ran into the district court we had several telephone hearings t remains the the the the reason we had so many lawyers on one here one hearing i was on the call was that we had a brief to the next day the judge asked us to brief something by the next day so then we filed a brief the next day the judge effort started in the ohio supreme court we came in and we decided to use the all writs at and to file a contempt motion just as an alternative parallel theory civil contempt which we did all right so then it took another day of extreme pressure to get the state to withdraw to follow the court order we were on the phone with the district court to just report ultimately had a cold state supreme court clerk and ultimately the state of ohio did withdraw the petition in the state supreme court but then judge markley to his credit said look you've got a problem with my consent decree let's have an immediate proceeding see if i should invalidated so then he said immediate motions and briefing on an intense schedule intense took there was one objection to two of my lawyers working all day on a sunday and and working virtually all night i'm a twenty six i remember the date because it's my it's my daughter's birthday and literally that brief was due and filed on may thirtieth about why the consent decree should not be invalidated so we were under extreme pressure there there was an oral argument in ohio that that was followed by an action  correct and by the fact that the state said we don't have to follow this anymore secretary bruner entered into this consent decree she shouldn't have done it we want to invalidate what we were trying to preserve it for a variety of reasons but then we realized that the consent decree had flaws what was the flaw in only covered essentially the homeless and others without without identification other than soche purity numbers and there were photo id and other requirements so we wanted to extend the consent decree state wide to tens of thousands of provisional voters who were voting because a poll worker error in the right location wrong precinct because it was multi precinct voting locations so the reason we had a problem was bush versus gore would have been validated at the six circuit later indicated in this case would have invalidated the consent decree for applying to some people a different standard then to other voters so what did we do we moved to modify the consent decree and extended but that had problems because it was a consent decree but we argued it and fought it out but at the same time another case was brought that we handled s c r you local one which was the case that went up injunction now there is briefing on not only both cases and there were reasons both had to proceed because one we wanted to preserve the consent decree which went beyond this issue the two we might have lost the cia local one case this yes therefore we're under very strict time constraints absolutely and judge morbidly spent a strawberry amount of time on this case did a magnificent job and he wanted to get his decision in and he wrote a fifty something page merits decision in time to get this case to the sixth circuit to allow this court to review the case this court then had  extraordinary if this court had in an incredibly rushed briefing schedule and this court then had one hour of oral argument done by telephone but the state of ohio had three lawyers argue and i had one lawyer in my office a younger partner argued the case under my supervision and then this this court put out a thirty something page opinion which was the first case since crawford the only case since crawford to really find a state wide equal protection problem no course not but what i would do is two things ok one one is i would work with her in preparing in advance i would talk that through i prepare a whole set of questions i'd go back and forth in a reading and then after you were a large human it was by telephone so if i needed to it was not video i could write a note as to a point to add and i did and it was very easy to do that in this court it's much more difficult but frankly if miss leighton had something critical to say to me i heigho we were the x for that kind of belies how many hours have to expend not in a case like this your honor number one but number two we build ohio right and particularly when you're supervising another partner who's supposedly an expert it was it save the state money by the fact that i supervised another partner i edited the brief worked out strategies that if i had done it all myself but secondly we build ohio rates we went to various firms in the state of ohio we brought in mr moore daoist b who in his supplemental declaration laid out all the reasons he was expert which judge marble e agreed with and relied on in his opinion and which was uncontroverted and whose deposition wasn't taken and we build ohio rates we reduce the san francisco rates were several hundred dollars more than we asked for and then judge morally cut those rates and were not challenging it by twenty percent so no we did not get san francisco rates we got good ohio rates we did not get jones day rates although this case i think deserve that and i think judge marbury was wrong there but we did that secondly we always got it all right special to it no it doesn't but its rates are commensurate with that of all the major firms in columbus and cleveland secondly we build our client for this case we actually build the client the client doesn't just pay a tell your clients and has forty years of billing doesn't just bills they reviewed the bills they analyzed them they paid for every one of those hours we cut in the time we went to the court some of the time we actually build the client to bend over backwards to show the court we're using billing judgement we also wrote o four hundred hours reimbursement yes yes we also we also we also cut four hundred hours that we did not build the client and we didn't ask this court for because we wanted to show we used billing judgement and on the right locate wrong location issue which we lost in the six circuit but one in the district court we could have built for that because it was related litigation we chose not to and that just have a quick question for you counsel for the state  said that notwithstanding everything that you've said and written there needs to be a substantial reduction and he says this court should make that reduction for all the reasons he argued here assuming there should be some reduction whatever the percentage is is that something this court has before it in the record the ability to do or should we think about the distro i think if there had to be a reduction should go to the district court but i take huge jump bridgette that in this case your honor because judge markley did cut some time he did cut the rates we didn't build for all kinds of time including time we build to our own clients and judge morley wrote a thirty one page opinion thirty i wrote an opinion thirty some years ago as and the gene case made a big difference i would i would just ask your honour's to try to eliminate the conflict here i would also close by saying this this case of all the six circuit cases i believe the fear ward in this case most closely resembles the situation even though one case is thirty years and one case was compressed but most complete but really does in terms of the magnitude of the case and the kind of lawyer and resembles the guy or case and i think the court which applied for george barrett a wonderful lawyer rates of between four hundred dollars an hour between one nine hundred eighty nine and please the court my name is sunday i'm here today representing plaintiffs in northeast ohio coalition for the homeless columbus coalition for the homeless and specifically for purposes of the fees oral argument the ohio democratic party these three groups who were involved only in the case were involved not only in the two thousand and twelve work that mr burgess on has discussed with your honor's but also in the twenty thirteen work to extend the consent decree i will add just a few points to those mr burns on his already discussed and because mr burns i did not have an opportunity to discuss the coulter three percent rule i may add a few points regarding that as well on the direct appeal of the first point that i'd like to make is that the district court correctly awarded district court is due when there is such an explanation we believe that there is no basis to find an abuse of discretion there the second point i'd like to make is that with the exception of two attorneys rates which we are challenging here the rates the district court awarded to counsel for odp and c c h for work in both twenty twelve and twenty thirteen were reasonable the firms presented evidence that this court has found to be probative of a reasonable rate including that the rates were the firm standard billing rates that the rates were consistent with that of local practitioners in cleveland and columbus and that the rates were consistent with prior fear words including those awarded in this case now the exception to the reasonableness of the district courts award and four twenty five you're really challenging the tamil reduction now and it's really not that that adjustment may seem small and large scheme of things we but we raise the issue because we believe that the case presents an opportunity to clarify standard the evidence in the in the record shows that the rates are consistent with what other attorneys have been awarded in other cases but more importantly the unrebutted evidence in the record establishes that these are council standard sees fit in light of the overall a patient in operation of the case sure so and we do greatly respect to the court the reason why we believe that there is a problem with producing an attorney again it's not a huge deal but i would like to point out the policy reason that we believe that the court should have provided and more of an explanation regarding this particular issue and that that specifically is the following about the rates and this kind of situation that is not possible there is no clout to negotiate rates and it is the numbers go up in terms of hours rates come down off so you know it's the problem is that the district judge knows so much more about this case than we can know if we spend twenty five hours or he's lived with  several years our concern is simply that when the court reduces the attorney's standard rate it jeopardizes the ability of fee paying clients who are paying that same rate to recoup what they have paid in those other civil rights cases and it involves the district court interfering with the market rate that has been set which creates a disincentive to lawyers choosing between fee paying work and civil rights fee shifting work which  is really the opposite of what congress has and they are saying that drug abuse is the discretion and fixing your feet i'm i'm simply saying that was not what you're saying no well specifically regarding the reduction of that rate without providing an the last point that i would like to make and because mr burleson did not have an opportunity to get to the coulter rule and it sounds like your honour's have acquainted yourselves with the briefing on the issue of my colle more litigation over the years if the defendant doesn't have to pay for it so i you know my own view is as in so many other cases i've written changed my mind i would like to give just one real world example of how that rule works to deprive counsel of compensation for their successful work but if you're saying if the judge is saying he sort of changed his mind about that theory th may please the court i want to pick up on one of the questions the judge for heinrich asked regarding the staffing hours combination viewed in full and that's one of the major problems in this case is the top heavy staffy you not only have high hourly rates you a lawyers getting charging high hourly rates being the ones that are putting in most of the hours the order rates do not reflect the normal type of billing pyramid you would see in a case staff this heavily as you do agree that this litigation in constitutional and in any sense of the word is important litigation is just not the norm we get damage lawsuits and of this is that i mean it could could affect the presidential election outcome i absolutely agree that civil rights litigation is important here i don't want any case the vote in two thousand and twelve was pretty close in ohio so i mean you're talking about a situation that is not the ordinary run of litigation but one of the issues with that type of view used to justify this fear ward is that we're under the lodestar  what i mean is that's one of the reasons that everything had to be done so quickly and it kind of at the last minute in connection with the election your honor one has dealt with a lot of cases that deal with expedited litigation over elections we've never seen a field word like this i would encourage the court to go look to the time other feel words which are just counsel there or and she was attempting to justify why she had rights lawyers but you have not given us any reason why is abuse the suppression of other then we should be appalled by the amount of hours or the rate card other than th have absolutely your honor the underlying policy is that if you look at purdue the lodestar method is supposed to result in reasonably predictable fear results and this is important to all sides of the party so that we know that we can settle fees without engaging in litigation so that we know where we're at if you look at the other ohio election award cases i mean there is no reason this award should be one point three million dollars higher than hunter this isn't there is no reason this award should be nine hundred thousand dollars over that kind of comparison is maybe helpful to you because you're there for me with apparently we don't know what happened in these other cases where we were not there so that comparison is not very helpful you know and it's not just the comparison though it's the cumulative effect every step of this litigation when you compare the hours to the actual work being before and you get head scratching totals and there's there there are limits to what abuse of discretion can be can can shield the busa discretion does not prevent this court from looking into the hours in this case the only way this court will actually now look into the hours that way how can we possibly be in a position to accept your recommendation of a fifty percent reduction and we have nothing on which to base something like that and you'll give us nothing if there's a random arbitrary number you don't have not your honor billing judgement arguments have to come down to a certain level of professional judgment and the state isn't arguing for any bright line as to how many hours can be charged for a particular task reduction we are your honor and that's because the profession own judgement the high when you compare it to another case of which we have no idea what and this will be your final comments and i would disagree that there is no other reason the district judge failed to perform an adequate analysis if you compare the state briefing in this case to the district judge's order i would argue that it is impossible to tell actually what the state was arguing it in this case he just made no attempt to engage with arguments over preparation for briefs attendance at conferences out of state travel five round trips from san francisco to columbus even though there was no attempt under haddix to to justify out of state counsel the devil is in the details in this case and someone has to examine the details and it has to be this court because the district court failed to counsel we appreciate your argument and the matter is submitted thank you very much thank you