the issue before this court is whether or not the interveners as the former attorney is your contention mr carpenter that the retention agreement here affectively assign a legal fee to ija application in court in the in the context of this case yes your honor and that was because of the decision by mr sheley that he would not proceed which effect ok ok that's that's different i'm sorry it sounds like as i understood your argument it was in your briefing it was because mr sheley elected not to pursue his statutory right to ija fees then under the his question was it that fear greenman between counsel and mr shelley assigning the right that mr sheley possesses by statute over to his counsel for his counsel to be able to file the each of the application because now they have the statutory right that was initially and always assigned forgiven conferred to mr sheley to mr truly as a party that's correct to her and to the extent that i responded in the affirmative than that i did not intend to go that far however i are like i don't know if i believe that the practical effect is the answer that i gave to judge dokic is that the practical effect is that there is an assignment of the right to proceed to those fees because all that is recovered under the aegis app that you just naturally are those fees and expenses incurred by counsel and that is the same in every attorney client relationship in proceedings before the veterans court and the veterans court by statute requires the attorney to file the iffy agreement and the fee agreement is filed with the court and that establishes the status of the attorney used as a party at interest in the proceedings under each now the proceedings under egypt only come at the end of the litigation and they are predicated by meeting certain statutory requirements that there is a prevailing party and that the government's position is not substantially justified and the fee sought are reasonable the question in this case is merely standing do these former attorneys as a result of their a fear agreement with the appellant have the legal standing to participate even to the extent of filing the application to recover the fees for the services that they presided provided to the appellant before mr sheley chose to terminate their service and and that counsel are seeking to file for those fees in your view on behalf of mr schilling not on their own is that how i understood your argument in your great brief yes your honor the problem here is that we're dealing with a little more than a case then you're foreclosed by well because willis says they don't the attorneys don't have prudential standing to seek the fees on behalf of  exists in this case is the right to initiate those proceedings and the right to initiate those proceedings flows from the fear agreement it does not but it could requires the filing of a fee agreement so that the court and the parties including the government are on notice of what the relationship is and the relationship under the terms of this contract provided the case you have here and what happened in willis because i believe there is right but i didn't see the disc any discussion in your briefs about willis particularly this potential standing defect that as the factual distinction here is that this case is about standing and how standing does or does not a rod didn't that wasn't the issue and willis i thought it was i thought willis said there's no article three standing in likewise in the alternative there's no potential standing that's correct and heart attack right so if i what's the daylight if any between the facts of willis and the facts here that get because assist you in saying well willis cannot control because well the holding in will is goes to who's fees those are and the interveners are not making an assertion that those these aren't they are there's until such time as the application is decide and at the time in which the application is decided they have both  an equitable interest in the fees that are granted in willis in a tourney there didn't have a contractual or equitable interest in the fees in the same way that the counsel here do i don't believe so you are because i don't believe there was a requirement in will as for the filing of the fee agreement that put all parties including the government on notice of what the legal relationship was pursuant to that figuring in this fear agreement the interveners agreed to represent at no charge to the veteran they can apply with that and provided those services until such time as mr sheley decided that he did not want their representation anymore at that juncture they had an interest in the work that had been performed in the event that he succeeded i don't think they had an interest in the fee or are you saying that they wired an interest in pursuing the in getting that joint agreement that that would be in correct your honor the work that they did is required in order to participate in the pre breathe thing conference that was held in this matter in order to prepare for that prebr conference counsel for the appellant is required for a memorandum of the issues that were at stake in the proceeding or the appeal that was being presented in order to do that counsel needed to review the record on appeal of the proceedings before the agency and prepare a memorandum and it was on the basis of that memorandum that this matter was from the government's point of view prepared to be resolved so everything was done except that mr sheley would not agree to the joint motion for remaining the subsequent counsel apparently persuaded mr sheley that that was the correct way to proceed and she did not either file an application for feeney's because i presume she's in a nonprofit situation in which their job is to work with other lawyers to act in the capacity of representing the good morning honors i mean it please the court any way you cut it in this case with the appellants are asking for is to be able to file and each application in their former client mr sheila's name over his the amount of that was claimed i think that's a separate issue but the fact the v a did not contest that blow and so obviously not v a s right to determine whether mr sheley objects or not yep but in terms of the prevailing part and status and so forth i think does a lot of damage to one aspect of the appellants arguments that your eyes didn't get into in the opening remarks which is this idea that to exempt what they really have here is a potential breach of contract action that that wouldn't be contrary to to mr carpenter disposition here we had a fee agreement which provided for an actual assignment of the legal fees for the client of the the attorneys  my questions are one would that give the attorneys standing to pursue the fees and to would that with the government acquiesce in such an arrangement under the assignment on the issue of whether that would change anything that's an issue that the th circuit addressed in its herrington the very real decision that we cited in our briefs parent in the very hill is a decision that came out after the supreme court's more general decision in ratliff that said that these rights belong to the living it and not to the attorneys the th circuit in harrington took on the question of whether the fact that there was an assignment in that case changed the analysis at all determined that it did not so although it's always difficult for us to speculate about issues that are not before the court at least one sister circuit of this court has come to the conclusion while the wizened of servants are included in change  over but i do think there is a two fold problem with the nature of the claim that is before the court which is this idea that the fear agreement creates a derivative or ancillary right to seek  in that case there is one minor distinction between this case and willis that is that that is relevant to the outcome here and if anything helps us but it makes the prevention standing issue i think less relevant here as compared to the the constitutional statutory standing issues we've raised that one distinction in willis was that the party in that case had both sought some of the fees that her former counsel had incurred and also refused to seek some of the fees that the former counsel incurred the court's description was that she she termed some of the fees excessive and my reading of the court's decision on parental standing relates to the portion of the claim the i'm sorry one other important fact there is that both the client and her former attorneys appealed up through the m s p board but then only the attorneys came here to the federal circuit so the client had effectively given up and i think that's where the potential standing issue arose  it was for the portion of the claim with the client had claimed the fees and then refused to continue and you turning was in on her own also claiming the fees and the court said there may be so extent that the attorney is claiming fees that the client supports that may be sufficient for constitutional standing but it doesn't satisfy production stand and we certainly would agree that and indicated in our brief that for the same reasons that the attorneys didn't satisfy potential standing in willis the attorneys here don't satisfy credential standing under the kaplan and right test we don't think the court needs to go that far here it seems like it's really a matter of sta standing all of the authorities on this issue in various ways including instances where parties have either waived in settlement agreements or otherwise not supported their attorneys move for fees the courts have all said this is  and she had given up on the attorney said no no no i want i want my full fees and hence there hence they were aligned there might be constitutional standing because because the attorney was again just asserting the for the rights of the former client the former client wanted to assert the difference here is that mr shelley does not in any way shape or form an objective i think four times below to any type of pursuit of fees by the appellants i think it that makes this book different from willis and kaplan and brief i don't think there's any way to get around and despite some some some different statements that the plaintiffs i'm sure the appellants locate the source of of the right that they're claiming not in the ija statute they rely for standing and that's what the veterans court below recognised the nature and the source of the right here is really the contract that's why the veterans court recognise that this is a fact of lee a common law breach of contract i say it's pretty unrealistic to think that the lawyers are going to sue the former client for the fees well you know it's not our role to stay i mean i think a consistent thread through the  issues including some of that some of what the supreme court said and ratliff and a number of the other cases that are adjacent is is it is really not it's really not our business to be getting into that type of dispute that's that's something for the i'd like to go back to the willows and the distinction between the factual situation there in the factual situation here in well us it was a proceeding that was under way with the agreement of after there was a decision on the merits of the ija application there has been no decision on the merits of the each application this puts these interveners in a position in which as opposed to being able to rely upon the contract that they were required to submit to the court to not be able to utilize that contract in order to ensure that there is an ija application now what happens after the result of the  application is frankly a matter for another day but the aegis statute is the only mechanism in which there is a determination as to what the value of the services were that were performed and those services were only perform under the auspices of egypt and respectfully your honor i don't believe that there is a state court that would be able to address whether or not the parties were or were not entitle to  fee under age so it seems to me that the distinction here merits at least the preventable standing to get this initiated and make a determination the result of that determination would be that mr sheley would be entitled to that feat we do not dispute that mr sheley is the owner of that feat now what happens after there is a judgment and whether or not he does or does