Court-approved attorney hourly rates by federal district

How the rates are collected

• Rates come from federal fee rulings published on GovInfo that state hourly rates, whether or not the court cut the fee.
• Each rate is checked against the opinion text: the dollar figure, the quoted passage, and the years of experience where given. Rates are recorded by role and experience, not by name, though the court's quoted words sometimes name the timekeeper.
• Approved means the rate the court approved or a magistrate judge recommended. Requested rates are shown beside them.
• Current medians use rulings from the last two years and need at least 5 rates for a role; the middle half is shown at 10 or more. Each district page also shows medians by year, so you can see how approved rates move.
• Statutory rates, such as Equal Access to Justice Act caps, are left out of the medians because they are not market rates. Rates a court took from a published matrix, such as the Laffey matrix, are included and marked. Bankruptcy courts are listed separately.

Rates turn on experience, practice area, and the work done. Use these as a starting point and cite the rulings, not this page, in a fee petition.

The data is free to use under CC BY 4.0. Please credit "LegalTime Fee Cut Tracker" with a link to this page. Spot an error? Email team@legaltime.ai with the case name and we will correct it. Summaries of public court opinions. Not legal advice.