Court Opinion

ID: 9429190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:56.423595+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:17.763464
License: Public Domain

Justice Brennan,
with whom Justice Marshall, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The Court today holds that “the extent of a plaintiff’s success is a crucial factor in determining the proper amount of an award of attorney’s fees under 42 U. S. C. § 1988.” Ante, at 440. I agree with the Court’s carefully worded statement because it is fully consistent with the purpose of § 1988 as well as the interpretation of that statute reached by the Courts of Appeals. I also agree that plaintiffs may receive attorney’s fees for cases in which “ ‘they succeed on any significant issue in litigation which achieves some of the benefit the parties sought in bringing suit,”’ ante, at 433, quoting Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F. 2d 275, 278-279 (CA1 1978), and that plaintiffs may receive fees for all hours reasonably spent litigating *442a case even if they do not prevail on every claim or legal theory, see ante, at 434-435.
Regretfully, however, I do not join the Court’s opinion. In restating general principles of the law of attorney’s fees, the Court omits a number of elements crucial to the calculation of attorney’s fees under § 1988. A court that did not take account of those additional elements in evaluating a claim for attorney’s fees would entirely fail to perform the task Congress has entrusted to it, a task that Congress — I think rightly — has deemed crucial to the vindication of individuals’ rights in a society where access to justice so often requires the services of a lawyer.
Furthermore, whether one considers all the relevant factors or merely the relationship of fees to results obtained, the District Court in this case awarded a fee that was well within the court’s zone of discretion under § 1988, and it explained the amount of the fee meticulously. The Court admits as much. See ante, at 438. Vacating a fee award such as this and remanding for further explanation can serve only as an invitation to losing defendants to engage in what must be one of the least socially productive types of litigation imaginable: appeals from awards of attorney’s fees, after the merits of a case have been concluded, when the appeals are not likely to affect the amount of the final fee. Such appeals, which greatly increase the costs to plaintiffs of vindicating their rights, frustrate the purposes of § 1988. Where, as here, a district court has awarded a fee that comes within the range of possible fees that the facts, history, and results of the case permit, the appellate court has a duty to affirm the award promptly.
I
In Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S. 240, 269 (1975), this Court held that it was beyond the competence of judges to “pick and choose among plaintiffs and the statutes under which they sue and to award fees in some cases but not in others.” Congress, however, has full authority to make such decisions, and it responded to the chai-*443lenge of Alyeska by doing the “picking and choosing” itself. Its legislative solution legitimates the federal common law of attorney’s fees that had developed in the years before Alyeska1 by specifying when and to whom fees are to be available.2 Section 1988 manifests a finely balanced con*444gressional purpose to provide plaintiffs asserting specified federal rights with “fees which are adequate to attract competent counsel, but which do not produce windfalls to attorneys.” S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976) (hereinafter Senate Report); cf. H. R. Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 9 (1976) (hereinafter House Report).3 The Court today emphasizes those aspects of judicial discretion necessary to prevent “windfalls,” but lower courts must not forget the need to ensure that civil rights plaintiffs with bona fide claims are able to find lawyers to represent them.
In enacting §1988, Congress rejected the traditional assumption that private choices whether to litigate, compromise, or forgo a potential claim will yield a socially desirable level of enforcement as far as the enumerated civil rights statutes are concerned.4
*445“All of these civil rights laws depend heavily upon private enforcement, and fee awards have proved an essential remedy if private citizens are to have a meaningful opportunity to vindicate the important Congressional policies which these laws contain.
“In many cases arising under our civil rights laws, the citizen who must sue to enforce the law has little or no money with which to hire a lawyer. If private citizens are to be able to assert their civil rights, and if those who violate the Nation’s fundamental laws are not to proceed with impunity, then citizens must recover what it costs them to vindicate these rights in court.” Senate Report 2.
See House Report 1-3.5 Congress could, of course, have provided public funds or Government attorneys for litigating private civil rights claims, but it chose to “limi[t] the growth of the enforcement bureaucracy,” Senate Report 4, by con-*446timing to rely on the private bar6 and by making defendants bear the full burden of paying for enforcement of their civil rights obligations.7
Yet Congress also took steps to ensure that § 1988 did not become a “relief fund for lawyers.” 122 Cong. Rec. 33314 (1976) (remarks of Sen. Kennedy). First, it limited fee awards to “prevailing” plaintiffs, rather than allowing fees for anyone who litigated a bona fide claim in good faith, see House Report 6-8, and it expressly reaffirmed the common-law doctrine that attorney’s fees could be awarded against plaintiffs who litigated frivolous or vexatious claims, see id., at 6-7; Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412, 416-417 (1978). It also left district courts with discretion to set the precise award in individual cases and to deny fees entirely in “special circumstances” when an award would be “unjust,” even if the plaintiff prevailed, see Senate Report 4; House Report 6; Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402 (1968) (per curiam).
“[A] key feature of the bill is its mandate that fees are only to be allowed in the discretion of the court. Congress has passed many statutes requiring that fees be awarded to a prevailing party. Again, the Committee *447adopted a more moderate approach here by leaving the matter to the discretion of the judge, guided of course by the case law interpreting similar attorney’s fee provisions.” House Report 8 (footnote omitted).
At a number of points, the legislative history of § 1988 reveals Congress’ basic goal that attorneys should view civil rights cases as essentially equivalent to other types of work they could do, even though the monetary recoveries in civil rights cases (and hence the funds out of which their clients would pay legal fees) would seldom be equivalent to recoveries in most private-law litigation. Thus, the Senate Report specifies that fee awards under § 1988 should be equivalent to fees “in other types of equally complex Federal litigation, such as antitrust cases and not be reduced because the rights involved may be nonpecuniary in nature.” Senate Report 6. Furthermore, “counsel for prevailing parties should be paid, as is traditional with attorneys compensated by a fee-paying client, ‘for all time reasonably expended on a matter.’” Ibid.
As nearly as possible, market standards should prevail, for that is the best way of ensuring that competent counsel will be available to all persons with bona fide civil rights claims. This means that judges awarding fees must make certain that attorneys are paid the full value that their efforts would receive on the open market in non-civil-rights cases, see generally Copeland v. Marshall, 205 U. S. App. D. C. 390, 400-410, 641 F. 2d 880, 890-900 (1980) (en banc), both by awarding them market-rate fees, id., at 409, 641 F. 2d, at 899, and by awarding fees only for time reasonably expended, id., at 391, 641 F. 2d, at 881. If attorneys representing civil rights plaintiffs do not expect to receive full compensation for their efforts when they are successful, or if they feel they can “lard” -winning cases with additional work solely to augment their fees, the balance struck by §1988 goes awry.
The Court accepts these principles today. As in litigation for fee-paying clients, a certain amount of “billing judgment” *448is appropriate, taking into account the fact that Congress did not intend fees in civil rights cases, unlike most private-law litigation, to depend on obtaining relief with substantial monetary value. Where plaintiffs prevail on some claims and lose on others, the Court is correct in holding that the extent of their success is an important factor for calculating fee awards. Any system for awarding attorney’s fees that did not take account of the relationship between results and fees would fail to accomplish Congress’ goal of checking insubstantial litigation.
At the same time, however, courts should recognize that reasonable counsel in a civil rights case, as in much litigation, must often advance a number of related legal claims in order to give plaintiffs the best possible chance of obtaining significant relief. As the Court admits, “[s]uch a lawsuit cannot be viewed as a series of discrete claims.” Ante, at 435. And even where two claims apparently share no “common core of facts” or related legal concepts, see ibid., the actual work performed by lawyers to develop the facts of both claims may be closely intertwined. For instance, in taking a deposition of a state official, plaintiffs’ counsel may find it necessary to cover a range of territory that includes both the successful and the unsuccessful claims. It is sometimes virtually impossible to determine how much time was devoted to one category or the other, and the incremental time required to pursue both claims rather than just one is likely to be small.
Furthermore, on many occasions awarding counsel fees that reflect the full market value of their time will require paying more than their customary hourly rates. Most attorneys paid an hourly rate expect to be paid promptly and without regard to success or failure. Customary rates reflect those expectations. Attorneys who take cases on contingency, thus deferring payment of their fees until the case has ended and taking upon themselves the risk that they will receive no payment at all, generally receive far more in winning cases than they would if they charged an hourly rate. The difference, however, reflects the time-value of money and the *449risk of nonrecovery usually borne by clients in cases where lawyers are paid an hourly rate. Courts applying §1988 must also take account of the time-value of money and the fact that attorneys can never be 100% certain they will win even the best case.
Therefore, district courts should not end their fee inquiries when they have multiplied a customary hourly rate times the reasonable number of hours expended, and then checked the product against the results obtained. They should also consider both delays in payment and the prelitigation likelihood that the claims which did in fact prevail would prevail.8 Copeland v. Marshall, supra, at 402-403, 641 F. 2d, at 892-893; Northcross v. Board of Education of Memphis City Schools, 611 F. 2d 624, 638 (CA6 1979); Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 540 F. 2d 102, 117 (CA3 1976). These factors are potentially relevant in every case. Even if the results obtained do not justify awarding fees for all the hours spent on a particular case, no fee is reasonable unless it would be adequate to induce other attorneys to represent similarly situated clients seeking relief comparable to that obtained in the case at hand.
II
Setting to one side theoretical issues about how district courts should approach attorney’s fees questions under *450§ 1988,1 fear the Court makes a serious error in vacating the judgment in this case and remanding for further proceedings. There is simply no reason for another round of litigation between these parties, and the lower courts are in no need of guidance from us.
A
The Court admits that the District Court made a “commendable effort” to explain the fee award and that the award “may be consistent” with today’s opinion. Ante, at 438. It professes to be “unable to affirm” solely because the District Court’s finding that “[t]he extent of this relief clearly justifies the award of a reasonable attorney’s fee,” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-16, is not accompanied by a further finding as to “what is ‘reasonable’ in light of that level of success.” Ante, at 438-439.
Even if the District Court had been silent on the reasonableness of the amount of its fee award, it would be difficult to imagine why this Court would presume, as it apparently does, that a federal judge had awarded an unreasonable fee without explaining how such a result was compelled. In any event, the District Court stated expressly:
“The Court concludes that, in this case, the entire award made to plaintiffs constitutes a reasonable attorney’s fee. No portion of it can be characterized as a penalty or damage award against the state of Missouri.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-11.
The District Court also addressed each of the factors mentioned in Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F. 2d 714 (CA5 1974), discussed by the Court ante, at 429-430, under the general rubric “Reasonableness of the Fee. ” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-11-A-18. It explained why it was not enhancing respondents’ fee to account for the uncertainty factor, id., at A-15 — A-16, and it discounted one attorney’s hours by 30% to yield “a reasonable claim of time,” id., at *451A-13. The District Court had this to say under the subheading “Amount Involved/Results Obtained”:
“The significance of this case cannot be measured in terms of dollars and cents. It involves the constitutional and civil rights of the plaintiff class and resulted in a number of changes regarding their conditions and treatment at the state hospital. Not only should plaintiffs be considered prevailing parties, they are parties who have obtained relief of significant import. Plaintiffs’ relief affects not only them, but also numerous other institutionalized patients similarly situated. The extent of this relief clearly justifies the award of a reasonable attorney’s fee.” Id., at A-16.
It is clear from the context that the District Court regarded the fee it was awarding as reasonable compensation for the results obtained. Simply changing the word “a” to “this,” in the last sentence quoted, would provide the additional finding the Court demands.
B
No more significant legal error requires today’s judgment. The Court notes that the District Court relied on Brown v. Bathke, 588 F. 2d 634 (CA8 1978), an opinion the “emphasis” of which the Court regards as misplaced. See ante, at 438-439, n. 14. What the Court finds suspicious in Brown is the implication that a district court must award attorney’s fees for all work “reasonably calculated to advance a client’s interest,” i. e., all nonfrivolous claims, whenever the client satisfies the “prevailing party” test. See 588 F. 2d, at 637-638. The District Court did not, however, refer to the language criticized by the Court. Rather, it cited a footnote in Brown for the proposition that “mechanical division of claimed hours . . . ignores the interrelated nature of many prevailing and non-prevailing claims.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-7, citing 588 F. 2d, at 637, n. 5. The remainder of the Brown footnote *452makes clear that the court was concerned with related legal theories, only one of which ultimately becomes the basis for relief. To that extent, Brown is perfectly consistent with today’s, opinion. See ante, at 434-436, and n. 11. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in its brief, unpublished memorandum affirming the District Court, did not cite Brown at all. App. to Pet. for Cert. A-1-A-2.
Perhaps if the questionable language in Brown were being misapplied in other cases from the Eighth Circuit, or if courts in some other circuit were misinterpreting § 1988 in light of precedents with similar implications, today’s result would have some instructive value. But such is not the case. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has never applied Brown in the manner the Court fears. Rather, its published opinions following Brown have made clear that, although it is an abuse of discretion to deny fees entirely to any plaintiff who has crossed the “prevailing party” threshold, district courts should consider the degree of plaintiffs’ success in setting a fee award. See, e. g., Williams v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 660 F. 2d 1267, 1274 (1981); United Handicapped Federation v. Andre, 622 F. 2d 342 (1980) (rejecting claim for over $200,000 in fees and setting $10,000 limit on award because of limited success in case); Oldham v. Ehrlich, 617 F. 2d 163, 168, n. 9 (1980); Cleverly v. Western Electric Co., 594 F. 2d 638, 642 (1979).
The law in other Circuits is substantially identical. Federal Courts of Appeals have adopted a two-stage analysis, whereby plaintiffs who obtain any significant relief are considered “prevailing parties,” and District Courts are directed to take into consideration the overall degree of a plaintiff’s success, and the extent to which work on claims on which no relief was obtained contributed to that success, in setting the exact amount of the award due. The mere fact that plaintiffs do not prevail on every claim does not preclude an award of fees for all work reasonably performed,9 but it is rarely an *453abuse of discretion to refuse to award fees for work done on nonprevailing claims that are not closely related to the relief obtained. See, e. g., Syvock v. Milwaukee Boiler Mfg. Co., 665 F. 2d 149, 163-165 (CA7 1981); Jones v. Diamond, 636 F. 2d 1364, 1382 (CA5 1981) (en banc); Lamphere v. Brown University, 610 F. 2d 46, 47 (CA1 1979); EEOC v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 597 F. 2d 251 (CA10 1979); cf. Copeland v. Marshall, 205 U. S. App. D. C., at 401-402, and n. 18, 641 F. 2d, at 891-892, and n. 18. Many of the same courts, however, have also stressed Congress’ clearly expressed intent that the apparent monetary value of the relief obtained should not be the measure of success in a civil rights case, and they have recognized that in many eases various claims are essentially part and parcel of a single attempt to establish and vindicate the plaintiffs’ rights. See, e. g., Copeland v. Marshall, supra; Gurule v. Wilson, 635 F. 2d 782, 794 (CA10 1981) (as modified en banc); Nadeau v. Helgemoe, 581 F. 2d 275 (CA1 1978).
Evaluation of the interrelatedness of several claims within a single lawsuit, and of the legal work done on those claims, is *454most appropriately a task for the district court that heard and decided the case, subject to appellate review for abuse of discretion. As the Court implicitly recognizes, the case before us manifests no clear abuse of discretion. Although plaintiffs obtained only part of the specific injunctive relief they requested, the District Court’s opinion on the merits both confirmed the existence of the constitutional right to minimally adequate treatment they claimed, App. 173-179, and established strict standards for staffing, treatment plans, and environment, against which the future conduct of defendants and other state mental health authorities will be measured, id., at 188-195. To a large extent, the District Court’s opinion fixed .plaintiffs’ entitlement to improvements instituted by defendants during the course of litigation. See id., at 192-193 (treatment plans), 190-191 (staff); compare Deposition of H. Bratkowski 12-13, 39, reprinted in Brief in Opposition 8, n. 10, 12, with App. 106-114, 120-121 (increase in staff during litigation). It is thus entirely understandable that the District Court considered respondents to have prevailed to an extent justifying fees for all hours reasonably spent, subject to one substantial reduction of over 300 hours for wasteful litigation practices, see ante, at 438, n. 13.
C
To remain faithful to the legislative objectives of § 1988, appellate courts, including this Court, should hesitate to prolong litigation over attorney’s fees after .the merits of a case have been concluded. Congress enacted §1988 solely to make certain that attorneys representing plaintiffs whose rights had been violated could expect to be paid, not to spawn litigation, however interesting, over which claims are “related” or what constitutes optimal documentation for a fees request. Paragraph-by-paragraph scrutiny of the explanations for specific exercises of the district courts’ broad discretion under § 1988 serves no productive purpose, vindicates no *455one’s civil rights, and exacerbates the myriad problems of crowded appellate dockets.10
If a district court has articulated a fair explanation for its fee award in a given case, the court of appeals should not reverse or remand the judgment unless the award is so low as to provide clearly inadequate compensation to the attorneys on the case or so high as to constitute an unmistakable windfall. See, e. g., Gurule v. Wilson, supra, at 792; Furtado v. Bishop, 635 F. 2d 915, 923, n. 16 (CA1 1980). Any award that falls between those rough poles substantially accomplishes Congress’ objectives.11 More exacting ¿review, for which there is no clear mandate in the statute oi its legislative history, frustrates rather than advances the policies of § 1988.
In systemic terms, attorney’s fee appeals take üp lawyers’ and judges’ time that could more profitably be. devoted to other cases, including the substantive civil rights claims that § 1988 was meant to facilitate. Regular appelláte scrutiny of issues like those in this case also generates a steady stream of opinions, each requiring yet another to harmonize it with the one before or the one after. Ultimately, § 1988’s straightforward command is replaced by a vast body of artificial, judge-made doctrine, with its own arcane procedures, which like a Frankenstein’s monster meanders its well-intentioned way through the legal landscape leaving waste and confusion (not to mention circuit splits) in its wake. Within the confines of *456individual cases, from prevailing plaintiffs’ point of view, appellate litigation of attorney’s fee issues increases the delay, uncertainty, and expense of bringing a civil rights case, even after the plaintiffs have won all the relief they deserve. Defendants — who generally have deeper pockets than plaintiffs or their lawyers, and whose own lawyers may well be salaried and thus have lower opportunity costs than plaintiffs’ counsel — have much to gain simply by dragging out litigation. The longer litigation proceeds, with no prospect of improved results, the more pressure plaintiffs and their attorneys may feel to compromise their claims or simply to give up.
This case itself provides a perfect example. Petitioners, who have little prospect of substantially reducing the amount of fees they will ultimately have to pay, have managed to delay paying respondents what they owe for over two years, after all other litigation between them had ended, with further delay to come. Respondents’ attorneys can hardly be certain that they will ever be compensated for their efforts here in defending a judgment that five Justices find deficient only in minor respects. Apart from the result in this case, the prospect of protracted appellate litigation regarding attorney’s fee awards to prevailing parties is likely to discourage litigation by victims of other civil rights violations in Missouri and elsewhere. The more obstacles that are placed in the path of parties who have won significant relief and then seek reasonable attorney’s fees, the less likely lawyers will be to undertake the risk of representing civil rights plaintiffs seeking equivalent relief in other cases. It may well become difficult for civil rights plaintiffs with less-than-certain prospects for success to obtain attorneys. That would be an anomalous result for judicial construction of a statute enacted “to attract competent counsel in cases involving civil and constitutional rights,” House Report 9; cf. Copeland v. Marshall, 205 U. S. App. D. C., at 400, 641 F. 2d, at 890 (fee awards intended to provide “an incentive to competent lawyers to undertake Title VII work”).
*457D
Few, if any, differences about the basic framework of attorney’s fees law under §1988 divide the Court today. Apart from matters of nuance and tone, largely tangential to the case at hand, I object to only two aspects of today’s judgment. First, I see no reason for us to have devoted our scarce time to hearing this case, and I fear that the sudden appearance of a new Supreme Court precedent in this area will unjustifiably provoke new litigation and prolong old litigation over attorney’s fees. More fundamentally, the principles that the Court and I share should have led us, once we had granted a writ of certiorari, to affirm the judgment below. To that extent, I dissent.

 See eases cited 421 U. S., at 284-285 (Marshall, J., dissenting). See also S. Rep. No. 94-1011, p. 6 (1976) (“This bill creates no startling new remedy — it only meets the technical requirements that the Supreme Court has laid down if the Federal courts are to continue the practice of awarding attorneys’ fees which had been going on for years prior to the Court’s . . . decision”).

 Because of this selectivity, statutory attorney’s fee remedies such as those created by § 1988 and its analogues bear little resemblance to either common-law attorney’s fee rule: the “American Rule,” under which the parties bear their own attorney’s fees no matter what the outcome of a case, or the “English Rule,” under which the losing party, whether plaintiff or defendant, pays the winner’s fees. They are far more like new causes of action tied to specific rights than like background procedural rules governing any and all litigation. This fundamental distinction has often been ignored. See ante, at 429; Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U. S., at 247.
For certain rights selected by Congress, § 1988 facilitates litigation by plaintiffs and encourages them to reject half-measure compromises, see New York Gaslight Club v. Carey, 447 U. S. 54, 63 (1980); Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 402 (1968) (per curiam), while at the same time it gives defendants strong incentives to avoid arguable civil rights violations in the first place and to make concessions in hope of an early settlement, see Copeland v. Marshall, 205 U. S. App. D. C. 390, 407, 641 F. 2d 880, 897 (1980) (en banc); Dennis v. Chang, 611 F. 2d 1302, 1307 (CA9 1980). Civil rights plaintiffs with meritorious claims “appear before the court cloaked in a mantle of public interest.” H. R. Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 6 (1976) (citing United States Steel Corp. v. United States, 519 F. 2d 359, 364 (CA3 1975)). Congress has granted them a statutory right to attorney’s fees in addition to any rights they have under fees rules of general applicability. Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, supra, at 402, n. 4; see Christiansburg Garment Co. v. EEOC, 434 U. S. 412, 416-417 (1978). Both of the traditional rules reflect the assumption that plaintiff and defendant approach litigation on a more or less equal basis. They leave the parties to private, essentially symmetrical calculations as to whether litigation — including the attorney’s fees it entails — represents a better investment than compromise and settlement or simply acceding to the opposing party’s demands. Of course, the parties approach those cal-*444eulations with different risk preferences and financial positions, and the principal difference between the two rules is that the English Rule, by enhancing the cost of losing after litigation, gives the party with superior ability to undertake risk more of a tactical advantage than does the American Rule. But — in theory, at least — neither common-law rule systematically favors plaintiffs over defendants, or vice versa.

 The portion of § 1988 at issue in this case states:
“In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of sections 1981, 1982, 1983,1985, and 1986 of [Title 42], title IX of Public Law 92-318 ... or title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, . . . the court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part of the costs.” Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976, 90 Stat. 2641.
Section 1988 was drafted based on Congress’ experience with over 50 fee-shifting provisions in other statutes, dating back to Reconstruction-era civil rights statutes, see Senate Report 3-4; Alyeska Pipeline Co. v. Wilderness Society, supra, at 260, n. 33.

 For most private-law claims, the public interest lies primarily in providing a neutral, easily available forum for resolving the dispute, and a plaintiff’s choice to compromise a claim or to forgo it altogether, based on his private calculation that what he stands to gain does not justify the cost of pursuing his claim, is of little public concern. But, in enacting § 1988, Congress determined that the public as a whole has an interest in the vindication of the rights conferred by the statutes enumerated in § 1988, over *445and above the value of a civil rights remedy to a particular plaintiff. Simply put, Congress decided that it would be better to have more vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws than would result if plaintiffs were left to finance their own cases.

 Congress had other reasons as well to believe that civil rights plaintiffs would often be unable to pay for the desirable level of law enforcement themselves. Civil rights remedies often benefit a large number of persons, many of them not involved in the litigation, making it difficult both to evaluate what a particular lawsuit is really worth to those who stand to gain from it and to spread the costs of obtaining relief among them. Cf. Hall v. Cole, 412 U. S. 1, 5-7 (1973); Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U. S. 375, 396 (1970) (finding nonstatutory awards under traditional “common fund” exception to the American Rule appropriate for this reason). This problem is compounded by the facts that monetary damages are often not an important part of the recovery sought under the statutes enumerated in § 1988, cf. Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., supra, at 402, and that doctrines of official immunity often limit the availability of damages against governmental defendants, see House Report 9, and n. 17.

 This case reflects the fact that Congress has provided public funding to some limited extent through a number of programs such as the Legal Services Corporation: respondents’ attorneys are associated with Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, Inc. They may not, however, use the money they receive from the Federal Government for cases in which fees are available. See 42 U. S. C. § 2996f(b)(1). For purposes of § 1988, such attorneys should be paid as if they were in private practice, in order both to avoid windfalls to defendants and to free public resources for other types of law enforcement. See New York Gaslight Club, Inc. v. Carey, 447 U. S., at 70, n. 9; Copeland v. Marshall, 205 U. S. App. D. C., at 409-410, 641 F. 2d, at 899-900; Rodriguez v. Taylor, 569 F. 2d 1231, 1248 (CA3 1977).

 Congress’ imposition of liability for attorney’s fees under § 1988 also represents a decision to abrogate the sovereign immunity of the States in order to accomplish the purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Senate Report 5; Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445 (1976); Maher v. Gagne, 448 U. S. 122, 128-129 (1980).

 Thus, the Court’s opinion should not be read to imply that “exceptional success” provides the only basis for awarding a fee higher than the reasonable rate times the reasonable number of hours. See ante, at 435. To the contrary, the Court expressly approves consideration of the full range of Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F. 2d 714 (CA5 1974), factors. See infra, at 450-451. If the rate used in calculating the fee does not already include some factor for risk or the time-value of money, it ought to be enhanced by some percentage figure. By the same token, attorneys need not obtain “excellent” results to merit a fully compensatory fee, see ante, at 435; merely prevailing to some significant extent entitles them to full compensation for the work reasonably required to obtain relief. See infra, at 452, and n. 9.

 Both the Senate and House Reports make clear Congress’ conclusion that success on every claim is not necessary. See ante, at 430-431, and *453n. 4. In addition, in its discussion of awards before final judgment, the Senate Report states:
“In appropriate circumstances, counsel fees under [§ 1988] may be awarded pendente lite. See Bradley v. School Board of the City of Richmond, 416 U. S. 696 (1974). Such awards are especially appropriate where a party has prevailed on an important matter in the course of litigation, even when he ultimately does not prevail on all issues.” Senate Report 5 (emphasis added).
See also Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U. S., at 392 (allowing fees pendente lite in suit which “has not yet produced, and may never produce, a monetary recovery,” an issue still to be tried).
The House Report notes that “courts have also awarded counsel fees to a plaintiff who successfully concludes a class action suit even though that individual was not granted any relief.” House Report 8 (citing Parham v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 433 F. 2d 421 (CA8 1970), and Reed v. Arlington Hotel Co., 476 F. 2d 721 (CA8 1973)). Note that in Reed the Court of Appeals awarded “reasonable attorney’s fees, including services for this appeal,” although the appellant obtained no significant relief at all on a major issue, either before the trial court or on appeal. See id., at 726.

 Cf. Note, Promoting the Vindication of Civil Rights Through the Attorney’s Fees Awards Act, 80 Colum. L. Rev. 346, 352 (1980).

 Congress having delegated responsibility for setting a “reasonable” attorney’s fee to the court that tried the case, reviewing courts, as a matter of good judicial policy, should not disturb the trial court’s solution to the problem of balancing the many factors involved unless the end product falls outside of a rough “zone of reasonableness,” or unless the explanation articulated is patently inadequate. Cf. Permian Basin Area Rate Cases, 390 U. S. 747, 767 (1968).