E.D. Pennsylvania cuts wage and hour fee award 91%, including for clerical work

What happened

Troy Law, PLLC sought $110,935.83 in fees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The court found the requested hourly rates unsupported and set lower reasonable rates. It excluded time on unrelated claims and the class consolidation motion, deducted clerical work such as formatting, organizing documents and travel booking, and cut mixed or vague entries. It reduced hours by 40% to 235.4 and adjusted the lodestar downward for limited success, awarding $9,952.11, a $100,983.72 reduction.

What the court said

There are numerous instances where Troy Law has billed for the costs of clerical work, including billing for formatting, organizing documents, and travel booking.

the court will deduct hours for mixed entries such as “Draft Mt Compel Discovery and Depo; Combine Exhibits and ECF to Court” and time entries related to setting up technology like “Set Up Zoom Links.”

The court finds certain entries not specific enough to assess the reasonableness of those entries. Such entries include “prepare for conference” and “confer with client re case status” in May 2024

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

Why it matters

The ruling shows that a fee petition can lose most of its value when time records mix clerical tasks with legal work, combine unrelated tasks in single entries, or describe work too generally to assess. Courts will set their own rates and cut hours before applying a further reduction for results obtained.

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 E.D. Pennsylvania approves and attorney fee motions in Pennsylvania federal courts.

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