S.D. Florida cuts social security fee award 2% over clerical work

What happened

The fee applicant sought $7,308.17 in attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act. The court awarded $7,162.72, a reduction of $145.45 or 2%. The reduction came from cutting 0.7 hours of clerical work that had been billed as legal work, lowering the compensable hours billed in 2020 from 4.2 to 3.5. The court agreed with the defendant that some of the identified time entries were clerical.

What the court said

Because we agree that some of the time entries identified by Defendant are clerical, we recommend reducing the total compensable hours billed in 2020 from 4.2 hours to 3.5 hours.

Why it matters

The ruling shows that courts will separate clerical tasks from legal work when reviewing time records on a fee petition, and will reduce the award for entries that bill clerical activity as legal time, even when the overall reduction is small.

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 S.D. Florida approves and attorney fee motions in Florida federal courts.

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