Opinion ID: 698317
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Attorneys' Fee Case

Text: 22 As the Supreme Court has stated, [a] request for attorney's fees should not result in a second major litigation. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1941, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). Parties to civil rights litigation in particular should make a conscientious effort, where a fee award is to be made, to resolve any differences. Blum, 465 U.S. at 902 n. 19, 104 S.Ct. at 1550 n. 19. Where settlement is not possible, case law establishes a clear structure for the determination of reasonable fees. 23 Under the statute, the district court is expressly empowered to exercise its discretion in determining the amount of a fee award, see 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988(b); however, a fee applicant bears the burden of establishing entitlement to an award, documenting the appropriate hours, and justifying the reasonableness of the rates, see Blum, 465 U.S. at 896 n. 11, 104 S.Ct. at 1547 n. 11 ([C]ourts properly have required prevailing attorneys to justify the reasonableness of the requested rate or rates.); Hensley, 461 U.S. at 437, 103 S.Ct. at 1941 ([T]he fee applicant bears the burden of establishing entitlement to an award and documenting the appropriate hours expended and hourly rates.). 24 As a general matter, this court has characterized the Blum formulation as constituting a three-part analysis: (1) determination of the number of hours reasonably expended in litigation; (2) determination of a reasonable hourly rate or 'lodestar'; and (3) the use of multipliers as merited. SOCM, 857 F.2d at 1517; see also In re Donovan, 877 F.2d 982, 992 (D.C.Cir.1989); In re Olson, 884 F.2d 1415, 1423 (D.C.Cir.1989). In this case, however, only the second prong--the determination of a reasonable hourly rate--is at issue. As noted above, a fee applicant's burden in establishing a reasonable hourly rate entails a showing of at least three elements: the attorneys' billing practices; the attorneys' skill, experience, and reputation; and the prevailing market rates in the relevant community. See Blum, 465 U.S. at 896 n. 11, 104 S.Ct. at 1547 n. 11; SOCM, 857 F.2d at 1524. 25 First, in cases in which prevailing attorneys request rates which are greater than those they normally charge, the attorneys must offer some evidence that they charge reduced rates for public-spirited or non-economic reasons. In SOCM, the court addressed the claims of attorneys engaged in private, for-profit practice, who adjusted fee schedules downward from pro bono or quasi public interest motives to reflect the reduced ability of the client to pay or what the attorney saw as the importance and justice of the client's cause. 857 F.2d at 1519. Building on the Supreme Court's decision in Blumwhich allowed market-rate fees for attorneys in non-profit legal services organizations--the SOCM court concluded: 26 Congress did not intend the private but public-spirited rate-cutting attorney to be penalized for his public spiritedness by being paid on a lower scale than either his higher priced fellow barrister from a more established firm or his salaried neighbor at a legal services clinic. 27 857 F.2d at 1524. 28 As was true in SOCM, the burden is on the fee applicant to show that the attorney's billing practices are of the sort covered by the SOCM test. That is, the attorney must show that his or her custom of charging reduced rates is in fact attributable to public spiritedness. Implicit in this line of inquiry is the assumption that the law was not written to subsidize attorneys who charge below-market rates because they cannot command anything more. And a defendant is free to rebut a fee claim on these terms in cases in which the issue is posed. We recognize that, in some cases, this may be a difficult line of inquiry, for an attorney who cannot command market rates invariably will have a custom of charging rates below the market. This problem is diminished with respect to attorneys who charge variable rates (both at and below the market, with the latter attributable to public-spirited goals). In any event, it is within the sound discretion of the district court to weigh the evidence to determine whether an attorney customarily charges reduced rates for non-economic reasons. 29 Second, prevailing parties must offer evidence to demonstrate their attorneys' experience, skill, reputation, and the complexity of the case they handled. In articulating the plaintiffs' burden in these cases, the Supreme Court required that fee applicants produce satisfactory evidence--in addition to the attorney's own affidavits--that the requested rates are in line with those prevailing in the community for similar services by lawyers of reasonably comparable skill, experience, and reputation. Blum, 465 U.S. at 896 n. 11, 104 S.Ct. at 1547 n. 11. 16 To some extent, this second element of the reasonable-rate analysis informs the first element of the inquiry, for as the SOCM court noted: We do not propose ... that all attorneys be remunerated at the same rate, regardless of their competence, experience, and marketability. We only aim to provide that their experience, competence, and marketability will be reflected in the rate at which they are in fact remunerated. 17 857 F.2d at 1521 n. 4. 30 Third, plaintiffs must produce data concerning the prevailing market rates in the relevant community for attorneys of reasonably comparable skill, experience, and reputation. This is undoubtedly a difficult assessment, and the Supreme Court has so acknowledged: 31 We recognize, of course, that determining an appropriate market rate for the services of a lawyer is inherently difficult. Market prices of commodities and most services are determined by supply and demand. In this traditional sense there is no such thing as a prevailing market rate for the service of lawyers in a particular community. The type of services rendered by lawyers, as well as their experience, skill, and reputation, varies extensively--even within a law firm. Accordingly, the hourly rates of lawyers in private practice also vary widely. 32 Blum, 465 U.S. at 895 n. 11, 104 S.Ct. at 1547 n. 11. However, as this court stated in National Ass'n of Concerned Veterans v. Secretary of Defense, 675 F.2d 1319, 1325 (D.C.Cir.1982), [t]he complexity of the market for legal services does not ... reduce the importance of fixing the prevailing hourly rate in each particular case with a fair degree of accuracy. 33 The Supreme Court's decision in Blum establishes the framework for analysis: 34 To inform and assist the court in the exercise of its discretion, the burden is on the fee applicant to produce satisfactory evidence--in addition to the attorney's own affidavits--that the requested rates are in line with those prevailing in the community for similar services by lawyers of reasonably comparable skill, experience, and reputation. A rate determined in this way is normally deemed to be reasonable, and is referred to--for convenience--as the prevailing market rate. 35 Blum, 465 U.S. at 896 n. 11, 104 S.Ct. at 1547 n. 11. The Court also noted that rates charged in private representations may afford relevant comparisons. Id.; see also Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U.S. 274, 286, 109 S.Ct. 2463, 2470, 105 L.Ed.2d 229 (1989) (A reasonable attorney's fee under Sec. 1988 is one calculated on the basis of rates and practices prevailing in the relevant market ... and one that grants the successful civil rights plaintiff a 'fully compensatory fee,' ... comparable to what 'is traditional with attorneys compensated by a fee-paying client.' ) (citations omitted). 36 In order to demonstrate this third element, plaintiffs may point to such evidence as an updated version of the Laffey matrix or the U.S. Attorney's Office matrix, or their own survey of prevailing market rates in the community. In SOCM, we approved of the district court's reliance, at least in part, on the schedule of prevailing rates compiled in Laffey. Although the SOCM court remanded the case to the district court for the limited purpose of making new findings as to reasonable hourly rates at the time the services were performed, it stated: 37 We do not intend, by this remand, to diminish the value of the fee schedule compiled by the District Court in Laffey. Indeed, we commend its use for the year to which it applies. Perhaps the most desirable result of the present litigation would be the compiling of a similar schedule of prevailing community rates for other relevant years. 38 SOCM, 857 F.2d at 1525. Although fee matrices are somewhat crude--the Laffey matrix, for example, lumps attorneys with four to seven years of experience in the same category; attorneys with eleven to nineteen also share the same hourly rate 18 --the matrices do provide a useful starting point. To supplement any matrix that has been offered, plaintiffs may also provide surveys to update the matrix; affidavits reciting the precise fees that attorneys with similar qualifications have received from fee-paying clients in comparable cases; and evidence of recent fees awarded by the courts or through settlement to attorneys with comparable qualifications handling similar cases. 39 When ... the applicant for a fee has carried his burden of showing that the claimed rate and number of hours are reasonable, the resulting product is presumed to be the reasonable fee contemplated by Sec. 1988. Blum, 465 U.S. at 897, 104 S.Ct. at 1548. At this point, the defendant may challenge the plaintiffs' application for attorneys' fees, but the Government's burden in rebuttal is not without demands: 40 Once the fee applicant has provided support for the requested rate, the burden falls on the Government to go forward with evidence that the rate is erroneous. And when the Government attempts to rebut the case for a requested rate, it must do so by equally specific countervailing evidence. Although there may be occasions in which the applicant's showing is so weak that the Government may without more simply challenge the rate as unsubstantiated, in the normal case the Government must either accede to the applicant's requested rate or provide specific contrary evidence tending to show that a lower rate would be appropriate. 41 Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1326. 42 Defendants may challenge any part of the prevailing parties' case for attorneys' fees. For example, defendants may challenge the plaintiff attorneys' claims that they charge reduced rates for non-economic reasons, and this might include a claim that under no circumstances would that particular plaintiff's attorney ever command the rates he or she requests. Defendants also may challenge the plaintiff attorneys' claims as to their competence, experience, reputation, or performance in the instant case. Finally, defendants may challenge plaintiff attorneys' market data, in an effort to show that the submitted market rates are inaccurate.