Opinion ID: 483257
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Pre-Remedy Phase Rates

Text: 14 Throughout this case, appellants employed only the most experienced lawyers, partners in the Newark law firm of Hellring, Lindeman, Goldstein, Siegal & Greenberg. The intervenors from New Jersey's 202d General Assembly, who are the appellees/cross-appellants in this case, challenge appellants' exclusive use of four partners (Messrs. Hellring, Goldstein, Raymar and Dreyfuss). Appellees assert that many matters in this litigation could have been handled by junior associates or paralegals, and that reasonable rates under Sec. 1988 must therefore be lower than those billed. They assert that, according to the reasoning in Ursic v. Bethlehem Mines, 719 F.2d 670, 677 (3d Cir.1983) (A Michelangelo should not charge Sistine Chapel rates for painting a farmer's barn.), if partners performed all tasks, including those normally handled by associates and paralegals, then they should not bill at their usual hourly rates. 15 Like the district court, appellees rely on the District of Columbia Circuit en banc opinion in Copeland III to urge lodestar reductions for inefficient use of partner time. Copeland III, however, is factually distinguishable from this case. The Copeland III litigation on the merits was a protracted gender discrimination suit against the government, and the district court there made specific findings as to the general expenditure of nonproductive hours by counsel for the plaintiff. See 205 U.S.App.D.C. at 412, 641 F.2d at 902. Under the special circumstances of th[at] case, the D.C. Circuit found that the district court's across-the-board lodestar reduction, without a precise identification of the hours or types of work spent that were not compensable, c[ould] not be condemned. Id. at 413, 641 F.2d at 903 (emphasis added). In addition, the special circumstances in Copeland III were primarily ... the expenditure of unnecessary time by relatively inexperienced lawyers. Id. at 413, 641 F.2d at 903 (emphasis added); see also id. at 412-13, 641 F.2d at 902-03 (hours that simply should not have been spent at all ... may occur, for example, when young associates' labors are inadequately organized by supervising partners). Finally, we are not prepared to hold on this matter of great constitutional import that it was inappropriate to use only the most experienced litigators at the early stage of this case. With all due respect for the significant academic achievements of many recent law school graduates and neophytes at the bar, we recognize that it tends to be a significant distance from the theories spun in classrooms to the successes won in courtrooms. The insights obtained from years of experience in major litigation are often indispensable in making the most crucial, tactical judgments as to how a case should be framed and litigated. Counsel for the prevailing parties in Copeland III, for example, were criticized because that firm's partners left the vital stages of the litigation to their unsupervised or inadequately supervised junior associates. 5 5] In contrast to that litigation, the staffing of this case by counsel for appellants seems to have been more wise than top-heavy. This is not to say that we would not approve hour or fee reductions if the district court had specified in sufficient detail the tasks and the hours devoted to them that should have been performed by associates or paralegals. In the absence of such specific data, however, we cannot say on this record that the staffing of this case was top-heavy. We will therefore vacate the district court's twenty percent reduction in the lodestar amount awarded.
16 Appellees also challenge the hourly rates approved by the district court. This Court measures the appropriate hourly rate for an attorney's services as that which has been historically charged in the community. See Cunningham, 753 F.2d at 268; In re Fine Paper Antitrust Litig., 751 F.2d at 591. Confronted by challenges to the rates approved by the district court, we look for abuses of discretion in that court's determinations. 17 The hourly rates approved were as follows: Mr. Goldstein, $200; Messrs. Dreyfuss and Raymar, $150. As to these amounts we can only say that, on the record of this case, they approach the highest limits that we could sanction upon review. 6 Though generous, however, approving such rates was no abuse of the district court's discretion. 18 Appellants challenge the district court's reduction of Mr. Hellring's hourly rate from $300 to $250. While it may be appropriate for a lawyer of Mr. Hellring's standing at the bar--his competence and effectiveness as an adovcate is acknowledged by all parties and by this Court--to charge his private clients $300.00 or more per hour, there nevertheless comes a point where a lawyer's historic rate, which private clients are willing to pay, cannot be imposed on his or her adversaries. Cf. Black Grievance Comm. v. Philadelphia Elec. Co., 802 F.2d 648, 652 (3d Cir.) (The reasonable value of an attorney's time ... is generally reflected in the attorney's normal billing rate.) (emphasis added), petition for cert. filed, 55 U.S.L.W. 3437 (U.S. Dec. 2, 1986) (No. 86-905). As the Sixth Circuit noted recently, Sec. 1988 use[s] the words 'reasonable' fees, not 'liberal' fees. Such fees are different from the prices charged to well-to-do clients by the most noted lawyers and renowned firms in a region. Coulter v. Tennessee, 805 F.2d 146, 149 (6th Cir.1986). See also Pennsylvania v. Delaware Valley Citizens' Council for Clean Air, --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 3088, 3098, 92 L.Ed.2d 439 (1986) (fee-shifting statutes were not ... intended to replicate exactly the fee an attorney could earn through a private fee arrangement with his [or her] client); Evans v. Jeff D., --- U.S. ----, 106 S.Ct. 1531, 1551, 89 L.Ed.2d 747 (1986) (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall and Blackmun, JJ., dissenting) (there is a range of 'reasonable attorney's fees' consistent with the Fees Act in any given case) (original emphasis); Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 895 n. 11, 104 S.Ct. 1541, 1547 n. 11, 79 L.Ed.2d 891 (1984) (in determining fee reasonableness under Sec. 1988, the rates charged in private representations may afford relevant comparisons). If we were confronted with a case where a litigator of national repute charged $1,000 per hour in the legal marketplace and nevertheless had innumerable clients waiting at his or her door to pay such rates, that extraordinary level of remuneration could not be legally imposed as a matter of course on an adversary in a prevailing party's counsel fee case. Mr. Hellring established that, at the time of this litigation, his historic hourly rate was $300, and that he had received judicial approval for an hourly fee of $375 as court-appointed counsel in a case where there was an existing trust fund. While we recognize that [a]ttorneys are not fungible, Black Grievance Comm., 802 F.2d at 652, and note Mr. Hellring's disappointment in this diminution of his fee request, as we read the cases he has not established a clear legal entitlement to $300 per hour. 7 We therefore approve the reduction of his fee as a matter of judicial discretion.