N.D. New York cuts wage and hour fee award 88%, including for clerical work

What happened

Troy Law, PLLC sought $133,172.33 in fees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The court awarded $15,963.16, a reduction of $117,209.17 or 88.0%. It lowered hourly rates for each timekeeper and travel time, cut 0.5 hours and 4.25 hours of clerical work billed as legal work, and cut 2.25 hours of administrative tasks. It also removed 2.06 hours for unfiled class certification work, 6.25 hours for unfiled motions, and 6.0 hours as excessive, then deducted $6,637.74 already covered by the judgment.

What the court said

This is not work that an attorney should be doing, let alone a senior attorney, and accordingly the Court will reduce Mr. Troy’s hours by this amount before applying the discount described below.

These entries appear to show Mr. Troy largely conducting administrative tasks, which are tasks not appropriately compensated at any attorney billing rate, let alone the rate requested for Mr. Troy’s time.

The court also reduced the award for: hourly rate reduced, other, unrelated claims, excessive hours, excessive hours, other.

Why it matters

The ruling shows courts will separate administrative tasks from legal work and reduce hours billed for them, even at senior rates. It also shows that entries lacking detail on the task or its benefit to the client can lead to further cuts, and that time on unfiled motions may not be compensable.

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. New York approves and attorney fee motions in New York federal courts.

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