Opinion ID: 763784
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hours Expended on the Preparation of Attorney Fee Motions

Text: 48 The Plaintiffs also challenge the district court's determination of the number of hours reasonably expended in connection with the preparation of the fee request in this case. Here, the Plaintiffs sought compensation for 9.9 hours of attorney time in connection with the preparation of the attorney's fee motions. The district court determined that the Plaintiffs' attorneys' fee request was unreasonable and, therefore, reduced the billable hours to 1.6. In making this reduction, the district court cited this Court's decision in Ustrak, in which we noted that 1.6 hours expended on an attorney's fee request preparation was reasonable. Ustrak, 851 F.2d at 988. Our holding in Ustrak, however, was actually based on our holding in Kurowski v. Krajewski, 848 F.2d 767 (7th Cir.1988), and, therefore, we must look to Kurowski to capture the essence of this Court's position. In Kurowski, we noted that 1.6 hours billed to the preparation for an award of attorney's fees was reasonable in light of the approximately 140 hours of time that the attorneys spent litigating the merits of the case. Id. at 776. 49 Here, the Plaintiffs' attorneys allegedly spent just under 100 hours litigating the merits of the case. In keeping with this Court's decisions in both Ustrak and Kurowski, the district court reduced the hours for the preparation of the request for an award of attorney's fees to 1.6. We think that this reduction is reasonably related to the number of hours spent litigating the merits of the case. Therefore, the district court's reduction did not constitute an abuse of discretion.