N.D. California cuts immigration fee award 0.9% over clerical work

What happened

The fee applicant in an immigration case sought $13,384.66 in attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act, covering 51.82 hours. Judge Laurel Beeler awarded $13,261.89, a reduction of $122.77, or 0.9%. The court applied a ten percent reduction to a subset of attorney hours to account for clerical components that could not be precisely separated because of how the time was recorded.

What the court said

The court applies a ten-percent reduction to those attorney hours to account for residual clerical components that cannot be precisely excised due to the manner in which they were recorded.

Why it matters

The ruling shows that courts will reduce fees when time entries mix clerical tasks with legal work and cannot be cleanly separated. Even a small, targeted cut signals that time records should distinguish clerical from attorney work.

How to keep this out of your fee petition

• Leave purely clerical work off the fee petition.
• Describe paralegal tasks so the substantive work is clear.
• Split mixed entries into their substantive and clerical parts.

Cite this ruling

See hourly rates the N.D. California approves and attorney fee motions in California federal courts.

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