D. Maryland cuts social security fee award 23.6%, including for clerical work

What happened

The plaintiff in a social security case sought $8,407.61 in attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act. The court awarded $6,421.38, a reduction of $1,986.23 or 23.6%. The court cut 1.1 hours for clerical tasks billed as legal work, including combining, stripping PDF/A, OCR and live bookmarking a federal court transcript. It also reduced 3.5 hours of record review as excessive and awarded 1.0 attorney hour for time billed on the fee reply.

What the court said

Moreover, time spent to "combine, strip PDF/A, OCR and live bookmark federal court transcript" is non-compensable.

The court also reduced the award for: excessive hours, fees on fees.

Why it matters

The ruling shows that courts separate clerical tasks from legal work when reviewing fee petitions, and that time spent on document formatting and processing can be excluded even when the underlying case is compensable. It also shows courts will trim record review hours found excessive and limit fees on fees to a stated number of hours.

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. Maryland approves and attorney fee motions in Maryland federal courts.

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.