Judge request fee records in Heller case

[maestro pistolero]

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2011/03/dc-judge-requests-three-firms-rates-in-legal-fee-dispute.html

The judge has requested anonymous fee records for attorneys who worked on the Heller case. I certainly hope the judge doesn't consider the fees of second-rate volunteer city attorneys to be a valid pay scale for the likes of Alan Gura.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Actually, I believe it was Gura who requested the pay records. The judge at first denied the request and has now required that the firms doing pro-bono work for D.C. - O’Melveny & Myers, Covington & Burling and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld - provide the standard rates for the lawyers who worked on the case.

The question is whether the $3.1 million Gura is requesting is unreasonable. Gura says that applying the standard billing rates of these firms lawyers will clearly show that his fee request is not at all unreasonable - and I suspect he is right in that regard.

[maestro pistolero]

Actually, I believe it was Gura who requested the pay records. The judge at first denied the request and has now required that the firms doing pro-bono work for D.C. - O’Melveny & Myers, Covington & Burling and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld - provide the standard rates for the lawyers who worked on the case.

Yep:
"Last year, Sullivan denied without prejudice Gura’s request to inspect the records. Sullivan reversed course today, saying the records, while perhaps not dispositive, will aid his work."
-The Blog of Legal Times

You can bet Gura knows the answer to whether their fees will compare favorably to his own. The man is not in the business of asking questions in a case to which he does not know the answer.

[KyJim]

Without doing any real research on it, I seem to recollect a couple of instances where judges looked at either hourly rates or total billings of defendants' attorneys when assessing attorney fees. That is just one factor, however.

[Aguila Blanca]

The senior members of firms in the two-bit burg we call "city" around here typically bill at $300 to $400 per hour. For senior level people in the large, big city firms who piled on in the Heller case, I would expect the billing rates are probably on the order of $1000 and upwards. $3.1 million would then work out to 3,100 person-hours. Figure one person can realistically work maybe 1,500 hours in a typical year, so that's two years' work for one person, or one year's work for two people.

Not unreasonable. I do happen to believe that the hourly fees charged by attorneys in general are obscene, but they are what they are. Gura is not out of line IMHO.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Figure one person can realistically work maybe 1,500 hours in a typical year, so that's two years' work for one person, or one year's work for two people.

Which just goes to show how reasonable Gura was in his request. Parker was originally filed in February 2003. The final SCOTUS decision came out June 2008. Five years of an experienced D. C. lawyers time for both trial and appellate work?

On another note, the 1,500 hour estimate is likely too low. Many big firms require their new associates to bill around 2,000 hours a year (40 hours a week over 50 weeks).

[brickeyee]

A 'standard' work year is 2000 hours after 80 hours of vacation.

[Aguila Blanca]

On another note, the 1,500 hour estimate is likely too low. Many big firms require their new associates to bill around 2,000 hours a year (40 hours a week over 50 weeks).

Interesting.

Many years ago, a friend who had recently left his old company and opened up his own consulting shop (NOT an attorney) told me about a seminar he attended that covered how to establish your billing rate. Basically, it came down to figuring there are 40 hours in a work week and you work 50 weeks ==> 2,000 hours. An independent consultant realistically spends about half his time on billable work and half on a combination of marketing and running the business. So you get about 1,000 hours of billable time in a year. Figure how much you want to bring in for the year and divide by 1,000.

I thought I was being generous by allowing 1,500 hours of billable time in a year. Large firms no doubt treat their new employees the way hospitals treat interns, and don't give them time to have a personal life, but I think the big-name firms that were donating time to the Heller case were using more senior personnel (don't know why I think that, but that's my impression), and I doubt very much the senior level people are spending 40 hours a week on billable work.

[Yellowfin]

A pretty reliable source put out the figure of $1200 an hour for Mr. Dellinger. OUCH.

[zukiphile]

A pretty reliable source put out the figure of $1200 an hour for Mr. Dellinger. OUCH.


I would have happily lost the case for half that.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Yes, new big firm associates don't get much in the way of work/life balance. The advantage of the big firm is (used to be) you don't have to hunt for work. In return, about 2/3 of every hour you bill goes to the firm. However, the result is they don't spend as much time as your consultant friend chasing down clients - that is mostly work that the partners do.

At least two of the Akin-Gump associates were brand new lawyers just out of law school. I happened to catch a lecture they gave on the experience. Typically, most big firms have associates do the majority of the grunt work and the partners either review it or handle the key aspects. Few businesses want to pay Walter Dellinger rates for routine legal stuff.

However, you are still looking at $200-300/hr even for a first year big firm associate. So even a single associate billing $200/hr for 5yrs could hit $2 million in fees.

[brickeyee]

I thought I was being generous by allowing 1,500 hours of billable time in a year.

Not if you are working on a single larger project.

[kilimanjaro]

Gura certainly earned his $3.1 million. What is that, about six bits per NRA member? Or six cents per gun owner.