IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS

EASTERN DIVISION

DANIEL B. WATERS, )

)

Plaintiff, )

)

v. ) No. 02 C 4762

)

CITY OF CHICAGO, )

)

Defendant. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

After scoring a resounding victory in the difficult and

hotly-contested lawsuit brought by client Daniel Waters

(“Waters”) against his ex-employer City of Chicago (“City”),

attorney Daniel O’Brien (“O’Brien”) has filed a fee petition

amounting to almost $195,000 (including just under $10,000 in

out-of-pocket expenses)--less than 15% of Waters’ recovery of

some $1.325 million. In response, counsel for City has

challenged not the number of hours expended by O’Brien, but

rather his entitlement to apply a $300 hourly rate to those hours

to produce the lodestar figure that O’Brien used as a basis for

his claim (without any enhancement for obtaining a smashing

success in what had to be recognized from its very outset as an

extremely difficult case to win).

As City would have it, because O’Brien is just a good

lawyer--a very good trial lawyer--who lacks prior experience in

the field of employment discrimination, the claimed hourly rate

is excessive and should be approved at only two-thirds of what
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O’Brien seeks (that is, at $200 per hour). When City’s counsel

moved last week (successfully and with no objection from O’Brien)

for a stay of enforcement of the underlying judgment pending

resolution of City’s appeal--a motion presented on the due date

for City’s response on the fee issue, filed later that day--this

Court queried City’s counsel as to the predicate for City’s

objection to the fee request. City’s counsel acknowledged that

the objection boiled down to an assertion that a lawyer

experienced in the area of employment discrimination law, with an

acceptable hourly market rate at least equal to or substantially

greater than the $300 figure, could have done the job more

efficiently and thus with the expenditure of fewer hours.

But that ipse dixit is totally devoid of any support other

than sheer speculation. This litigation did not particularly

call for special expertise in any arcane aspects of the law of

employment discrimination--just good lawyering generally,

including good trial skills. O’Brien exhibited those qualities

in abundance during the course of a lawsuit that this Court

observed closely throughout its extended life. City’s counsel

has provided nothing in the way of evidence of any inefficiencies

or wasted efforts--for example, no opinion evidence from anyone

skilled in the field asserting that less time would have had to

be expended by someone coming into the litigation armed with

prior employment law experience, nor even a statement of the time
 That latter figure, dealing with the defense against 1

Waters’ claim, would not of course be a match for what was

required to prepare for and pursue the claim on Waters’ part, but

it might be somewhat informative as to the reasonableness of

O’Brien’s time expenditure. That possibility, however, is moot

in light of City’s wholly uninformative approach to the issue.

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expended by defense counsel.1

Moreover, what City has ignored entirely in its niggardly

approach to the matter is the host of cases cited in O’Brien’s

submission in which the approved fee awards were far greater in

relation to the results obtained than O’Brien’s petition

reflects--indeed, often the lawyers have received far more than

the clients (see, e.g., cases against City itself that O’Brien

has cited: O’Sullivan v. City of Chicago, 484 F.Supp.2d 829

(N.D. Ill. 2007) and Garcia v. City of Chicago, No. 01 C 8945,

2003 WL 22175618 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 19)). It must not be forgotten

that the lodestar figure is not at all the be-all and end-all

measure for determining the reasonableness of fees--to the

contrary, the seminal decision in Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S.

424, 436 (1983) teaches a lesson applied in countless cases in

the quarter century since Hensley was decided:

Again, the most critical factor is the degree of

success obtained.

In sum, O’Brien--a lawyer with nearly two decades of

experience under his belt in trying cases on a contingent-fee

basis--could well have urged as a reasonable fee an amount well

over the 15% of Waters’ recovery represented by a lodestar
 City interposes no objection to the latter figure. 2

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approach. But he did not do so, and City should scarcely cavil

at the reasonableness of the claim he chose to advance. This

Court approves O’Brien’s claim--$185,130 in fees and $9,852.65 in

out-of-pocket expenses --in its entirety. 2

________________________________________

Milton I. Shadur

Senior United States District Judge

Date: June 3, 2008