As a San Francisco Superior Court judge heard arguments Oct. 3 on a $1.5 million attorneys’ fee request, the defense lawyers in the room could be forgiven if they had been keeping a close eye on the clock. In court papers, their opposing counsel listed hourly billing rates of more than $500 apiece.
Several times, Judge Anne Bouliane complimented the lawyers for crafting briefs on the fee motion that were thorough and clear, suggesting that a decision might be rendered swiftly. But arguments that were scheduled to run until 9:30 or 10 a.m. extended almost until lunch.
For the defense lawyers, at least — Seyfarth Shaw’s Catherine Dacre and Eric Hill — the outcome Wednesday was well worth the wait. By Legal Pad’s calculations, the judge’s decision could save their client more than $400,000 in fees paid to the plaintiff’s side.
Bouliane lopped $100 off the hourly rate of $525 requested by Donna Ryu and Miye Goishi, Hastings College of the Law professors who worked on a meal-and-rest-break case, Murphy v. Kenneth Cole Productions, that was resolved in their favor by the California Supreme Court. Bouliane reduced another Hastings lawyer’s requested fee from $400 to $375 and said fees for four law students should be capped at $90, instead of the requested $175.
Under protest from Ryu and her attorney, Linda Dardarian, who argued that $425 would be below market rate for a lawyer with Ryu’s experience and qualifications, Bouliane said she adjusted the fees “to be aligned with what I consider consistent with rates for legal services in the community.” The judge said she’s seen some fee awards that were “very conservative.” Others were more generous, she said: “I think some were submitted by my colleague, Judge [James] McBride. I thought those were personally a little high.”
Later, Bouliane squirmed a bit as she told Ryu and Dardarian she would further reduce the fees requested for time spent preparing the fee motion argued that day. Claiming that there appeared to be some duplication in the time records, the judge said “it would seem at least 70 hours should be subtracted” from the hours logged by Dardarian, and about 12 hours should be cut from Ryu’s records.
“This is very difficult to look someone in the eye and do this. A lot of it was for conferencing [and] discussing strategy. I can’t give you all those hours. I’m not implying anything nefarious about it. I just don’t think I can do it,” Bouliane said.
Bouliane also reduced Dardarian’s fee request from $535 to $425, while trimming back the rates for another attorney and a paralegal at Dardarian’s firm, Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian.
And finally, Bouliane reduced the multiplier that plaintiff attorneys seek as a bonus incentive for taking up risky, complex cases on a contingent basis, and winning. Ryu and Dardarian asked Bouliane to double their fee award. Without explaining why, the judge said she would multiply it by a factor of 1.8.
— Matthew Hirsch
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