M.D. Tennessee cuts social security fee award 24.3%, including for clerical work

What happened

The plaintiff sought $8,909.65 in attorney fees under the Equal Access to Justice Act for 34.1 hours. The court awarded $6,743.99, a reduction of $2,165.66 or 24.3%. It cut 8.4 hours of 2023 attorney time by one third as excessive and excluded 1.4 hours billed by paralegal Brenden Perrigo for combining, OCRing, and bookmarking a federal court transcript, which the court found clerical and not compensable under the EAJA. The awarded hours totaled 31.3.

What the court said

paralegal Brenden Perrigo's billing entry of 1.4 hours on March 24, 2023 to "combine, OCR [Optical Character Recognition], and live bookmark Federal Court transcript" is a clerical task not compensable under EAJA.

The court also reduced the award for: excessive hours.

Why it matters

The ruling shows courts will separate clerical tasks from legal work on a fee petition and will reduce time entries found excessive, even in a modest EAJA request. Time records that identify who performed each task and how much time it took allow the court to apply these cuts with precision.

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 M.D. Tennessee approves and attorney fee motions in Tennessee 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.