In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 01-1784

People Who Care, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

Rockford Board of Education, 

School District No. 205,

Defendant-Appellant,

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Western Division.

No 89 C 20168--P. Michael Mahoney, Magistrate Judge.

Submitted April 3, 2001--Decided November 29, 2001 

 Before Bauer, Posner, and Kanne, Circuit

Judges.

 Posner, Circuit Judge. The defendant, a

school district, in this long-running

school desegregation case (see,

e.g.,People Who Care v. Rockford Board of

Education, 246 F.3d 1073 (7th Cir. 2001),

171 F.3d 1083 (7th Cir. 1999), 153 F.3d

834 (7th Cir. 1998) (per curiam), 90 F.3d

1307 (7th Cir. 1996), 921 F.2d 132 (7th

Cir. 1991)) appeals from an order

awarding the plaintiffs some $800,000 in

fees for services performed by their

lawyers in 1997. The threshold question

is whether we have jurisdiction of this

appeal, which is interlocutory because

the underlying litigation has not yet

concluded. Although an award of

attorneys’ fees is appealable separately

from the decision on the merits, Budinich

v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 486 U.S. 196

(1988), this case involves an interim

award of fees, and so is not the final

order in the proceeding to obtain

attorneys’ fees. We (and other courts as

well) have held, however, that where the

fees might not be recoverable by the

defendant from the plaintiff if the award

were reversed at the end of the

litigation, so that refusal of an

immediate appeal might inflict

irreparable harm on the defendant, the

award is appealable immediately as a
collateral order. E.g., People Who Care

v. Rockford Board of Education, supra,

171 F.3d at 1086; Construction Industry

Retirement Fund v. Kasper Trucking, Inc.,

10 F.3d 465, 468 (7th Cir. 1993); People

Who Care v. Rockford Board of Education,

supra, 921 F.3d at 134-35; Richardson v.

Penfold, 900 F.2d 116 (7th Cir. 1990);

Palmer v. City of Chicago, 806 F.2d 1316

(7th Cir. 1986); Law v. National

Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 134 F.3d 1025,

1027 (10th Cir. 1998); Riverhead Savings

Bank v. National Mortgage Equity Corp.,

893 F.2d 1109, 1113-15 (9th Cir. 1990);

Webster v. Sowders, 846 F.2d 1032, 1035

(6th Cir. 1988); cf. Walker v. HUD, 99

F.3d 761, 766 (5th Cir. 1996). For it is

final in the practical sense that it may

well be the last opportunity the

defendant has to obtain relief from the

order from the appellate court. That is

the situation here. The defendant

contends that the plaintiffs’ law firm is

small and fragile--and the plaintiffs do

not contest the contention, and so we

accept it as true and proceed to the

merits.

 The principal challenge is to an award

of almost $90,000 in prejudgment interest

on attorneys’ fees, that is, interest on

the fees before any award is entered. The

district court directed that interest

would accrue (and be compounded) from the

thirtieth day after the services

generating a claim for fees were

rendered. Bearing in mind that the

purpose of a fee award is to reimburse

the plaintiff for the cost he would

reasonably incur if he purchased legal

assistance in the market, Blum v.

Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 894 (1984); In re

Synthroid Marketing Litigation, 264 F.3d

712, 718-19 (7th Cir. 2001); Gaskill v.

Gordon, 160 F.3d 361, 363 (7th Cir. 1998)

("When a fee is set by a court rather

than by contract, the object is to set it

at a level that will approximate what the

market would set. The judge, in other

words, is trying to mimic the market in

legal services" (citations omitted));

People Who Care v. Rockford Board of

Education, supra, 90 F.3d at 1310, we

think the proper approach to the

calculation of interest requires

consideration of prevailing practices in

the legal-services market. This follows

from the "market mimicking" approach,

orthodox in this circuit, to computing

the fee award. The idea is to "estimate
the terms of the contract that private

plaintiffs would have negotiated with

their lawyers," In re Synthroid Marketing

Litigation, supra, 264 F.3d at 718

(emphasis added), and if such a contract,

express or implied, would provide for

interest, the fee award should include

interest, or some equivalent adjustment,

as in Ohio-Sealy Mattress Mfg. Co. v.

Sealy Inc., 776 F.2d 646, 662-63 (7th

Cir. 1985). So if the prevailing practice

is that lawyers either are paid on the

thirtieth day after rendering their

services or charge interest beginning on

the thirty-first day, then the district

court’s order was proper. But not only is

there no evidence of this; it obviously

is incorrect. Lawyers rarely bill their

clients within days of rendering services

in an ongoing suit, receive payment

within thirty days of that rendition, or

charge interest for payment after thirty

days. Institutionalized Juveniles v.

Secretary of Public Welfare, 758 F.2d

897, 923 (3d Cir. 1985); Reid F. Trautz &

Paul McLaughlin, "How to Get Paid," 27-1

Law Practice Management 30, 31 (2001). No

doubt if the client refused to pay or

delayed unreasonably in paying, the

lawyer might decide to charge interest;

and if he had to sue to get paid, he

would certainly do this, and would thus

seek an award of prejudgment interest.

But the plaintiffs here are seeking

interest as a matter of course rather

than as a penalty for bad faith,

obduracy, or foot-dragging.

 The award of interest was especially

unjustifiable because the plaintiffs did

not bill the defendant for their 1997

attorneys’ fees until 1999. Imagine the

response of a client in the market who

received a bill more than a year after

the rendition of the services covered by

it and was told that he owed not only the

amount of the bill but compound interest

for every month but one since the

services were rendered.

 The defendant’s other challenges to the

order do not have sufficient merit to

warrant a reversal of any portions of it

other than the award of interest. The

order is affirmed in part, reversed in

part, and remanded.