S.D. Alabama cuts fee award 44.9%, including for clerical work

What happened

The fee applicant sought $145,198.78 under the Equal Access to Justice Act. The court awarded $79,971.75, a reduction of $65,227.03 or 44.9%. It cut 43.407 attorney hours and 9.7 paralegal hours for unrelated claims, and 15.6 attorney hours and 0.9 paralegal hours spent opposing a successful motion to dismiss. It reduced the attorney and paralegal hourly rates, reduced remaining paralegal hours by 30% for clerical work billed as legal work, and excluded 7.5 hours of law student work.

What the court said

Instead of assessing each paralegal time entry line-by-line and excluding purely clerical tasks, the Court will reduce the remaining paralegal hours by 30%.

The court also reduced the award for: unrelated claims, unrelated claims, hourly rate reduced, hourly rate reduced, other.

Why it matters

The ruling shows courts will reduce fee awards for time on unsuccessful or unrelated claims and will set reasonable hourly rates. It also shows that when paralegal entries mix clerical tasks with legal work, a court may apply a percentage cut to the remaining hours rather than review each entry line by line.

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 S.D. Alabama approves.

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.