E.D. Kentucky cuts social security fee award 7.7% over clerical work

What happened

The fee applicant in Bowman v. SSA sought $6,536.88 in fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act. Judge Karen K. Caldwell awarded $6,036.88, a reduction of $500.00, or 7.7%. The court excluded 1.9 hours for tasks it described as clerical or secretarial, 0.6 hours for receiving, reviewing, and processing files from the referral source, 0.6 hours for a task it called purely secretarial, and 0.9 hours for preparing a form without explanation that substantive legal knowledge was used.

What the court said

These tasks are clerical or secretarial in nature and therefore are not compensable.

receiving, reviewing, and processing files from the referral source constitutes clerical work because it "does not require substantive legal knowledge"

Nothing in this bare description describes work that is typically done by an attorney. It reflects a purely secretarial task.

The term 'prepared,' without further explanation by Plaintiff of whether the paralegal utilized substantive legal knowledge or merely filled in a contract form with client information, more closely aligns to clerical work

Why it matters

The ruling shows that courts will separate clerical or secretarial tasks from compensable legal work even in a modest EAJA request, and that a bare time entry description may not establish that a task required legal knowledge.

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

attorney fee motions in Kentucky federal courts.

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