Opinion ID: 531368
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Duplicative and Excessive Time

Text: 57 At trial, the plaintiff was represented by two attorneys: Levin and Kohn. Levin conducted the trial while Kohn's participation would be described in common parlance as a second chair. Kohn participated at trial by taking notes, discussing trial strategy with Levin, and organizing trial materials. The plaintiff contends that Kohn's presence was necessary to allow Levin to devote his complete attention to presenting matters to the jury. The defendant also attacks the amount of time that both Levin and Kohn spent preparing various court documents. 58 Of course, duplicative and excessive time, not reasonably billed to one's own client, cannot be billed to an adversary through a fee-shifting statute. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 434, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1940, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). While we have refused to lay down a flat rule of one lawyer per case, Lenard v. Argento, 808 F.2d 1242, 1244 (7th Cir.1987), the tendency of law firms to overstaff a case should cause the trial court to scrutinize a fees petition carefully for duplicative time, see Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434, 103 S.Ct. at 1940; see also Roe v. City of Chicago, 586 F.Supp. 513, 514 (N.D.Ill.1984). 59 In this case, it appears that the trial court did not adequately parse the fees petition for excessive or duplicative time. Our examination of the record reveals between eighty to one hundred hours where attorneys Levin and Kohn may have attended the same conference, deposition, or court proceeding. Although on remand the trial court should make specific findings, it appears that a substantial portion of Kohn's attendance at trial was not fully justified. Also, numerous entries in Jardien's fees petition indicate an excessive amount of time for drafting court documents. Although defense counsel's obstreperousness and contentiousness may have caused Jardien's attorneys to draft these documents in the first place, the amount of time it took to research and draft these various documents should not have been affected. 60 Where we can easily discern the amounts of excessive or duplicative time and where the interests in expediting litigation dictate, we have cut the fees petition ourselves. See Ustrak v. Fairman, 851 F.2d 983, 989 (7th Cir.1988) (citing cases). In this case, the record does not allow us to decipher what hours were duplicative or excessive. The fees petition is often ambiguous as to how much time was spent on certain kinds of work. Where we find potentially duplicative time, we cannot tell whether it was Levin's or Kohn's participation that was unnecessary, and the difference in the hourly rates makes this distinction important. Thus, we find it necessary to remand this case to the trial court for a redetermination of attorneys' fees. 11