Gibson Dunn's normal partner rates are $1,815 and $1,785/hour.
They asked for a reduced rate of $950/hour on a case here in Miami.
Chief Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres reduced those rates to $700/hour in this Report & Recommendation.
Here's the Reuters report about it:
"The court's task in a fee petition is not simply to award what a local client could be willing to pay for a given superstar lawyer," Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres wrote in his report.
Peak One's lawyers included Gibson Dunn partners Helgi Walker in Washington, D.C., and Barry Goldsmith in New York.
10 comments:
This is why I charge flat fees...
Judge Scola just awarded $1058 an hour to national counsel in the US Sugar decision that was issued last week. So your mileage may vary.
I have never met a lawyer worth 1800 or even 1000 bucks an hours and I have met some damn good ones. Those are rates that underwrite exorbitant overhead and profits in the multi millions of dollars for partners at firms like Gibson. This is what happens when the law ceases being a profession and becomes purely a business. Most people and businesses cannot afford lawyers. Judge Torres' R&R is reasonable and 700 bucks is generous for a prevailing party fee application.
Insane. Unacceptable. Totally unreasonable.
Judge Torres is a great Magistrate Judge and I will remain happy if and when I have another case assigned to him. But reading this R&R made me sick, even with the haircut he made defense counsel take. $700 an hour to 3 different partners, 259.8 lawyer hours billed (plus paralegal hours), and $158,000 in fees for civil litigation decided on a motion to dismiss on statute of limitations and choice of law grounds and because the prior complaints were shotgun pleadings.
I don't even see that a scheduling order was entered in this case or that discovery had opened. WTF was this time spent on? Tripple-billing meetings?
Judge Torres basically called this case a straight forward slam dunk. See fn 4 ("This case was adjudicated on a statute of limitations argument that was strongly supported in relevant caselaw, and Plaintiff has little to offer the Court of Appeals other than its self-serving view should prevail over these decisions."). If it was that straight forward, what was so complex that such a rate and so many hours were justified?
Se le ha perdido el respeto al dinero.
I get what 10:04 a.m. (and others) are saying, but, candidly, an argument could be made that Judge Torres, at least in terms of rates, cut too much. Seven hundred dollars per hour is below the national rate of any mid-level partner at a large law firm in Miami (though many firms do discount their rates to get to that range). And Judge Torres's finding that $500 per hour for "a more traditional senior associate" in Miami is, in a word, laughable. First-year associates at large law firms charge that much. You can cry all you want about rates, but it is what it is.
A better argument is on the amount of lawyers needed for any particular case. And, let's be honest, you don't need armies of lawyers to prepare even a sophisticated motion to dismiss; a partner and an associate will most often do. Judge Torres did find some of the hours to be too many. But even there, what do you want judges to do? Are judges *really* in the best position to tell lawyers how to staff their cases, or to determine whether that one additional lawyer for that one particular task is too much? I, for one, don't think so.
At the end of the day, these are more judgment calls than exact findings, and both judges and lawyers would be better served understanding that. To that end, it probably would be more efficient if -- as the case law permits -- judges were simply to give an across-the-board haircut to facially reasonable attorney's-fees requests (rather than waste their resources going into deep detail in preparing these orders). Doing so would fairly account for inefficiencies and redundancies that are inherent in the practice of law, and it would save everyone time and money.
Let's say this again, but simpler... 260 billable hours and $158,000 in fees for motion practice on a slam dunk statute of limitations case with no discovery. If that doesn't at least raise an eyebrow, you've lost all sense of proportionality.
I'm a commercial litigator and this precedent can only put more money in my pocket. So, I shouldn't complain. But if I were Judge Gayles, I'd have a lot of questions when reviewing the objection to R&R.
All true - but don't mess with my 350k flat fee to plea an indicted defendant out (trial court only baby - ha ha ha Tjoflat smoflat rule!) after reviewing 10 hours of him on Colombian wiretaps selling cocaine (I am so dedicated I even double check the calls against the line sheets)!
I negotiate the best plea agreements - I typically send like 1 proposed redline of their draft back at them before they reject it - you should see their heads spinning. Man I bust their chops. And...I always get the government to cave and admit my guy should get the bottom of the guidelines...whatever they might be. Sometimes those stupid ivy league (well not so much anymore) do goods even consider removing the appeal waiver language and agree to let me argue for a minor role! One day, I think they will really give me a break and let me argue for a variance!!!
My sentencing memos are....da bomb!....I almost always get the DJ thinking about minor role before they say "no". Those judges can be so tough - but I love seeing them sweat it out at my mejor arguments.
At sentencing - and this takes work - I usually wear the judges down and get them to recommend placement in a BOP facility in the SD Fla. too. Suckers. One time...this judge told me if I didn't stop talking she was going to recommend my client serve his sentence in the district of Alaska...I was like...I'll be quiet...but then....when she left the courtroom....I was talking again.
Once, when I was really really on my game - I got a really hard-ass judge to modify the PSR and correct my client's wife's (common law) name....the Judge was like...'what does it matter if it is an 'i' or a 'y' after the 'x'...but I wasn't going to give in...I was like....NO JUDGE....that is her name and my client shouldn't be spending the next 427 months in jail apologizing to his lovey about why he let her name get misspelled....especially when he was good enough to take a plea and save them a trial....lord knows he had a shot cause juries can take it easy on 75 year old men in wheel chairs! Finally, that judge gave in. Knew I was going to get RK appointed CJA counsel for the appeal and have his ass reversed for abuse of desertion. And...so worth it...when that judge told my guy that 427 months was like a life sentence for a 75 year old man, and that if he wanted, the judge would let him take is plea back and go to trial.....I was like 'hell no'....I know you just want to see him get convicted by a jury so you can give him 500 months! I mean come on...we all know what you are up to...thank you very much...but my client is very happy with his 427...what's that? appeal waiver? yeah, so...there is a 2255 waiver in there too! You won't be seeing either of us anymore! Suckers trying to mess with my please.
And stop trying to mess with my loadstars....I got the brightest in the sky!....all said and done...its like 10k per hour....and that is if I really mess up on the fee quote. Hahahaha take that Gidsen Scrum. The only guys doing better are the really smart DUI lawyers who take 50k for a BOT 1st DUI...man...I thought I was doing good. But those guys...25k hourly....genius.
Anyhow, burned through like 5k in loadstar writing this...back to the grindstone.
I hear UPS is paying $170,000 and the dress code is a bit more relaxed.
@755 - too late for me now, but if I was 15 years younger, you can forget about this lawyering b.s. I'd be rocking those brown short shorts all over town. I might have even grown a Magnum PI mustache to go with it.
Insane prices.
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