Opinion ID: 725286
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Services In Preparation of Complaint

Text: 28 Plaintiffs claimed 191 hours, spent from March 10 to June 28, 1985. There were 118 entries by four attorneys. The entries are reasonably detailed and include conferences with clients and others, conferences among attorneys, review of the statutes and regulations under attack, including legislative history, research of law, of issues concerning class actions, and use of pseudonyms, and outlining, drafting, and repeated revisions of the 26 page complaint. Judge Nordberg disallowed entries for meetings totalling 7.1 hours where he was unable to determine the subject matter or effort appeared to be duplicated. In other respects he found the explanation to be adequate and the time spent to appear reasonable in light of the issues presented. 29 State Defendants argue that the disallowance was insufficient. They devote less than a page in telling why. They point to a total of 39.75 hours spent by 2 or 3 attorneys on 6 days in April and June 1985 in conferences, and in excess of 50 hours devoted by those attorneys in drafting and revision. They appear to claim, without further analysis, that the allowance made must include duplicate, redundant or excessive efforts. Judge Nordberg found the time reasonable, and we cannot say there was an abuse of discretion. 30 Our review must be highly deferential. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437; McNabola v. Chicago Transit Authority, 10 F.3d 501, 518 (7th Cir.1993); Ustrak v. Fairman, 851 F.2d 983, 989 (7th Cir.1988). 31 We make two observations which apply to this and other challenges by the State Defendants. They infer from two choices of phrasing made by Judge Nordberg that he thought it was their burden to demonstrate the unreasonableness of hours claimed. To the contrary, the judge wrote, The Court will consider each objection, mindful that Plaintiffs bear the burden of substantiating the reasonableness of the hours expended. He cited McNabola, the same case cited by State Defendants. 32 Secondly, plaintiffs had furnished detailed itemized contemporaneous entries of time spent by the respective attorneys. All were verified by affidavit or declaration of the attorney who rendered or supervised the service. Attorney Connell asserted in her affidavit that she had reviewed all the time sheets and had eliminated any time billed for duplicative or unproductive efforts, including a write-off of more than 2500 hours of time actually expended. This statement afforded general support for the proposition that duplicative and unproductive time was not claimed. 33