Eleventh Circuit cuts civil rights fee award 58.2%, including for clerical work

What happened

Liberty Counsel, counsel for the plaintiffs, sought $2,115,018 in fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 for 2,274.8 hours. The Eleventh Circuit, in a per curiam opinion by Judges Jill Pryor, Grant, and Brasher, awarded $884,374.77, a reduction of $1,230,643.23 or 58.2%, leaving 1,819.9 hours. The court accepted deductions of 169.5 hours for fees on fees and 86.3 hours for travel time, applied 50%, 40%, and 20% cuts to subsets of hours for excessive billing, deducted about ten hours for clerical work billed as legal work, cut 15% of conferencing time for duplicative staffing, and imposed a 20% proportional reduction across all timekeepers.

What the court said

a deduction of ten to fifteen minutes for each entry that included filing or service—perhaps ten hours total—is appropriate

The court also reduced the award for: fees on fees, travel time, excessive hours, excessive hours, excessive hours, duplicative staffing, other.

Why it matters

The ruling shows that appellate courts will scrutinize time entries line by line, separating clerical tasks from legal work and trimming excessive or duplicative billing, even when the overall award is affirmed. It confirms that fee applicants must document each task and timekeeper with enough specificity to support the hours claimed.

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

Figures and quotes are taken from the opinion and checked against its text. Spot an error? Email team@legaltime.ai with the case name and we will correct it. Summaries of public court opinions. Not legal advice.