D. New Jersey cuts fee award, including for clerical work

What happened

The plaintiff sought attorney fees, and the court examined the time records. It found that a letter took 13.7 hours of attorney time without adequate justification, so it reduced one attorney's 9.4 hours on the letter to 6.0 and another's 4.3 hours to 3.0, a cut of 4.7 hours. The court also found 3.4 hours spent on scheduling issues excessive and removed those hours from the lodestar as clerical work.

What the court said

Expending 3.4 hours to attend to the scheduling issues is excessive. As such, the Court will redact from the lodestar those hours.

The court also reduced the award for: excessive hours.

Why it matters

The ruling shows courts will trim specific entries when the time claimed for a task is not explained, and will separate clerical tasks from legal work in the lodestar. It also shows reductions can rest on the face of the time records rather than on a percentage cut across the board.

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 D. New Jersey approves and attorney fee motions in New Jersey federal courts.

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