“The party seeking an award of fees should submit evidence supporting the hours worked and rates claimed. Where the documentation of hours is inadequate, the district court may reduce the award accordingly.”
How later courts described this case
- “The party seeking an award of fees should submit evidence supporting the hours worked and rates claimed. Where the documentation of hours is inadequate, the district court may reduce the award accordingly.”
- noting that the degree of the plaintiff’s success “is a factor critical to the determination of the size of a reasonable fee”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, NORTHERN DIVISION
J. P., as parent and next )
friend of A.W., a minor, )
)
Plaintiff, )
) CIVIL ACTION NO.
v. ) 2:19cv636-MHT
) (WO)
ELMORE COUNTY BOARD OF )
EDUCATION, )
)
Defendant. )
OPINION
Plaintiff J.P. has brought suit against defendant
Elmore County Board of Education regarding the
education of her child A.W., who has significant
disabilities. The court previously granted summary
judgment to J.P. on count II of her complaint.
, No.
2:19cv636-MHT, 2021 WL 1270463 (M.D. Ala. Apr. 6, 2021)
(Thompson, J.). With that count, J.P. seeks attorneys’
fees under the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B), for the time her
counsel spent litigating two underlying due-process
proceedings that J.P. brought against the Elmore County
school district, which is managed and controlled by the
defendant board of education, to obtain various
educational services for A.W. The court found that
J.P. was the prevailing party in both due-process
proceedings and was entitled to fees, but it reserved
the determination of the precise amount of fees due and
requested certain clarifications from J.P. regarding
the hours sought by her attorneys. , 2021 WL
1270463, at *6.
J.P. has now responded to the court’s request for
these clarifications. Accordingly, the court now turns
to deciding what fees are due.
I. LEGAL STANDARD
The starting point in setting any attorneys’ fee
award is determining the “lodestar” figure--that is,
the product of the number of hours reasonably expended
to prosecute the lawsuit and the reasonable hourly rate
2
for work performed by similarly situated attorneys in
the community.
, 836 F.2d 1292, 1299 (11th Cir. 1988). The
fee applicant bears the burden of “establishing
entitlement and documenting the appropriate hours and
hourly rates.” at 1303. After calculating the
lodestar figure, the court should then proceed to
determine whether any portion of this fee should be
adjusted upwards or downwards.
, 478 U.S.
546, 565-66 (1986).
In making the above determinations, the court is
guided by the 12 factors set out in
, 488 F.2d 714, 717-19 (5th Cir.
1974).1 , 489 U.S. 87, 91-92
(1989). These factors are: (1) the time and labor
1. In , 661 F.2d 1206,
1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), the Eleventh Circuit
Court of Appeals adopted as binding precedent all of
the decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down
prior to the close of business on September 30, 1981.
3
required; (2) the novelty and difficulty of the
questions; (3) the skill required to perform the legal
services properly; (4) the preclusion of other
employment by the attorney due to acceptance of the
case; (5) the customary fee in the community; (6)
whether the fee is fixed or contingent; (7) time
limitations imposed by the client or circumstances; (8)
the amount involved and the results obtained; (9) the
experience, reputation, and ability of the attorneys;
(10) the “undesirability” of the case; (11) the nature
and length of the professional relationship with the
client; and (12) awards in similar cases. , 488
F.2d at 717-19.
II. DISCUSSION
To calculate the lodestar figure in this case, the
court will first determine the reasonable hourly rate
for J.P.’s counsel. Then, it will consider the hours
requested by counsel and the board of education’s
4
objections to some of these hours, in order to
calculate the number of hours reasonably expended.
Finally, it will address whether any part of the fee
should be adjusted by determining, for instance, the
degree of success obtained by J.P. in the underlying
proceedings.
, 489 U.S. 782, 790 (1989) (noting
that the degree of the plaintiff’s success “is a factor
critical to the determination of the size of a
reasonable fee”).
A. Reasonable Rate
The IDEA’s attorneys’ fees provision instructs that
fees awarded “shall be based on rates prevailing in the
community in which the action or proceeding arose for
the kind and quality of services furnished.” 20 U.S.C.
§ 1415(i)(3)(C). In addition to the prevailing rate
for attorneys in the community working on cases of
similar complexity, the court may consider what the
5
particular attorney making the fee request has
previously charged for like work, which is “powerful,
and perhaps the best, evidence of his market rate.”
, 213 F.3d 1347, 1354
(11th Cir. 2000). The court is also “itself an expert
on the question of fees, and may consider its own
knowledge and experience in making a fee award.”
, 253 F.3d 1314, 1322 n.12
(11th Cir. 2001).
As this court has previously noted, because of the
limited number of attorneys taking special-education
cases in Alabama, the court may look to the prevailing
community rates for attorneys undertaking other civil
rights work as well.
, 65 F. Supp. 2d 1249, 1261
(M.D. Ala. 1999) (Thompson, J.); Decl. of James D.
Sears (Doc. 26-14) at ¶ 48 (indicating that fewer than
15 special-education attorneys are currently working in
Alabama). The relevant community for establishing
6
local rates is “the place where the case is filed.”
, 29 F.3d 1489, 1494
(11th Cir. 1994).
Attorney Cassady, who worked on both of the two
underlying due-process proceedings, contends that a
reasonable rate for his services is $ 325 per hour.
Decl. of Henry L. Cassady, Jr. (Doc. 26-16) at 15,
22. Attorney Johnson, who worked on only the second
due-process proceeding, contends a rate between $ 325
and $ 400 per hour. Decl. of William Tipton
Johnson III (Doc. 26-34) at 12.
The rate requested by Cassady is approximately in
line with what other attorneys of significant
experience have received in the relevant market for
similar work. This consideration incorporates the
fifth and twelfth factors: the customary fee in
the community and awards in similar cases. As a judge
of this court found seven years ago, “skilled lawyers
with twenty years or more experience may expect to
7
receive $ 300 an hour” in the Middle District of
Alabama.
, 31 F. Supp. 3d 1354, 1360 (M.D. Ala. 2014)
(Fuller, J.). The court in , No.
3:14-cv-1020-TFM, 2017 WL 6388960 (M.D. Ala. Dec. 14,
2017) (Moorer, M. J.), found a few years later that
those figures were “essentially accurate ... with some
adjustments for inflation,” and it therefore determined
that a reasonable rate in the Northern Division of the
Middle District of Alabama was $ 325 per hour for an
attorney with 17 years of experience. at *5. And
in a recent civil-rights case filed in Montgomery,
Alabama, another judge of this court found $ 295 per
hour to be a reasonable rate for an attorney with eight
years of legal experience whom the court found
“exhibited skills normally found in attorneys with ten
or more years of practice.” , No.
2:15-CV-606-WKW, 2019 WL 3561589, at *4 (M.D. Ala. Aug.
5, 2019) (Watkins, J.).
8
According to his declaration, Cassady has been
practicing law since 1990, meaning that he has more
than 30 years of experience as an attorney. It is
unclear how much of that time has involved
special-education cases; he asserts that he undertook
his “first due process case over twenty years ago,”
Cassady Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 32, but he does not list
any particular special-education cases among his
lengthy litigation history prior to the last several
years. He also did not provide in his declaration
evidence of the fee he typically charges, except to
note that he has been paid an hourly rate of $ 325 “in
settlements with other school districts in Alabama.”
at 32.
Furthermore, it appears to the court that the
evidentiary record in the underlying proceedings was
substantial and that the disputed issues were
complex--particularly in the first of the two
due-process proceedings, which Cassady litigated by
9
himself. These determinations correspond to the first
three factors. In light of all of the above
circumstances, and considering the prevailing rate in
the community, the skill and experience of attorney
Cassady, and the complexity of the due-process
proceedings at issue and the legal acumen required to
litigate them, the court finds that $ 325 per hour is a
reasonable hourly rate for Cassady’s work.
Attorney Johnson has somewhat less experience than
Cassady, having practiced law for approximately
eighteen years. Johnson Decl. (Doc. 26-34) at 2.
According to his declaration, he has been taking
special-education cases since 2012. As a
result, although the duration of his overall experience
as an attorney is less than Cassady’s, the time he has
spent developing specialized expertise in
special-education matters appears to be greater.
Johnson indicates that he typically charges $ 325
per hour for his services in special-education cases.
10
at 12. While this is not dispositive, it is
informative as to the market rate for his work. And
although the issues in the second due-process
proceeding may have been somewhat less complex than
those in the first proceeding because the second
focused on enforcement of an existing settlement, the
claim nonetheless involved sophisticated legal matters
requiring proficiency with both a difficult area of law
and a substantial evidentiary record.
After considering all of the above factors and
circumstances, the court finds that a reasonable rate
for Johnson’s work was $ 300 per hour. The court finds
that Johnson’s reasonable rate is lower than Cassady’s
primarily because of their different levels of
experience, but it finds that no lower than $ 300 per
hour would be appropriate for Johnson, in the context
of the prevailing rate in Montgomery and the
surrounding district, because of his significant
expertise with special-education matters and the
11
difficulty of this case.
In sum, the court finds $ 325 per hour to be a
reasonable rate for attorney Cassady and $ 300 per hour
to be a reasonable rate for attorney Johnson.
B. Reasonable Hours
The court primarily considers three of the
factors--the time and labor required, the novelty and
difficulty of the case, and the amount involved and
result obtained--in assessing the reasonableness of the
hours claimed by J.P.’s counsel. It also considers in
turn each of the board of education’s objections to the
hours claimed by Cassady and Johnson.
1. First Due-Process Proceeding
Cassady claims the following hours of work for the
first due-process proceeding:
• Preparing first due process petition: 6.5 hours
• Reviewing education records: 3.9 hours
12
• Preparing amended petition: 8 hours
• Corresponding with opposing counsel: 4.05
hours2
• Telephone hearings: 2.35 hours
• Legal research and writing: 5.1 hours3
• Handling settlement matters: 3.9 hours
• Client meetings and correspondence: 12 hours4
• Witness/exhibit lists: 1.6 hours5
2. This total consists of 1.05 hours documented in
Cassady’s declaration and 3.0 hours documented in the
clarification requested by the court. Cassady
Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 17; Clarification (Doc. 73) at 4.
3. The court notes that of this time, 4.8 hours
were spent preparing a motion for a pendency order and
a reply brief on that motion. Cassady Billing
Hours on First Proceeding (Doc. 26-18) at 30-33, 44-49.
4. This total consists of 9.2 hours documented in
Cassady’s declaration and 2.8 hours documented in the
clarification requested by the court. Cassady
Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 19; Clarification (Doc. 73) at 4.
5. This total consists of 0.9 hours documented in
Cassady’s declaration and 0.7 hours documented in the
clarification requested by the court. Cassady
Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 19; Clarification (Doc. 73) at 5.
13
• Correspondence with witnesses from Alabama
School of Deaf and Blind (AIDB): 5.9 hours6
• Consulting with other attorneys: 1.5 hours7
• Preparing for trial: 11 hours
• Trial: 7.5 hours
• Mediation: 18.15 hours8
• Communicating with hearing officer: 7.7 hours
• Miscellaneous file review: 0.8 hours
Cassady Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 16-21; Clarification
(Doc. 73) at 3-6.
These claimed hours add up to 99.95 hours of
6. This total consists of 4.2 hours documented in
Cassady’s declaration and 1.7 hours documented in the
clarification requested by the court. Cassady
Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 20; Clarification (Doc. 73) at 5.
7. This total consists of 0.8 hours documented in
Cassady’s declaration and 0.7 hours documented in the
clarification requested by the court. Cassady
Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 20; Clarification (Doc. 73) at 4.
8. This total consists of 17.05 hours documented
in Cassady’s declaration and 1.1 hours documented in
the clarification requested by the court. Cassady
Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 21; Clarification (Doc. 73) at
5-6.
14
attorney time. Accordingly, the court finds that
Cassady is requesting a total lodestar figure of
$ 32,483.75 for his work on the first due-process
proceeding. Cassady also requests 11.5 hours of
paralegal time at $ 80 per hour and expenses of
$ 1,085.15. Cassady Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 22;
Cassady Revised Billing Hours (Doc. 73-1) at 139.
The sum of these requests is $ 34,488.90 for the first
due-process proceeding.
The court notes that this total number of hours and
total lodestar amount are not the figures provided by
Cassady either in his declaration or in the
clarification requested by the court due to
discrepancies and ambiguities in his declaration. The
court further notes that Cassady’s clarification did
not include all of the information that the court
instructed him to provide. ,
2021 WL 1270463, at *6 (instructing Cassady to provide
categorizations of all of his requested hours,
15
including entries of 0.1 hours), , Clarification
(Doc. 73) at 3-6 (providing categorizations only of 0.1
hour entries). The total hours and expenses listed in
his clarification also do not match the total fee he
requests in the clarification. Clarification
(Doc. 73) at 6 (claiming 99.9 total hours of attorney
time at $ 325, 11.5 hours of paralegal time at $ 80,
and $ 491.25 of expenses, which sums to $ 33,878.75),
, at 2 (claiming $ 32,692.53 to be the correct
total amount requested).
The court finds that Cassady’s failure to provide
consistent total figures for the fees and hours he
claims or a consolidated breakdown of the time for
which he seeks compensation, as instructed by the
court, is a ground for a reduction in his total award
in an amount equal to the difference between the
above-calculated total number, including paralegal time
and fees, and the amount of $ 32,692.53--which, among
the total amounts requested by Cassady, is the one he
16
claims to be correct. Clarification (Doc. 73) at
2. The court will therefore reduce Cassady’s final
award for the first due-process proceeding by
$ 1,796.37. , 461 U.S. 424,
433 (1983) (“The party seeking an award of fees should
submit evidence supporting the hours worked and rates
claimed. Where the documentation of hours is
inadequate, the district court may reduce the award
accordingly.”).
The board of education has filed a motion to strike
parts of Cassady’s fee request. Motion to Strike
(Doc. 33). The court denied the motion to strike but
indicated that it would consider the arguments made
therein at the proper juncture. Order (Doc. 34).
Because the motion to strike objects to specific hours
claimed by Cassady, the court believes that it is
appropriate to take up the board of education’s
arguments in that motion now.
Most of the objections made in the motion to strike
17
are to the way that Cassady has reported his hours in
his billing record, rather than to the propriety of his
billing for those hours. In particular, the board
objects to the inclusion of the full text of certain
emails, which the board says contain information that
“casts Defendant in a bad light.” Motion to Strike
(Doc. 33) at 4. Whether or not this is true, it does
not make the hours Cassady has billed for those
correspondences unreasonable, and the court will not
exclude the hours objected to on that basis.
The board also objects to certain time entries on
the ground that they are not sufficiently specific--for
instance, entries for phone calls with consulting
attorneys that do not mention the name of the attorney
consulted, at 5, or entries for preparing a
motion or brief that do not “account for time spent on
each portion of the filing” or “differentiate between
time spent performing legal research” and “time spent
applying the case law he researched to the facts of his
18
case,” at 5, 6. The descriptions of Cassady’s time
are adequately particularized for the court to
determine whether they were “reasonably expended,”
, 461 U.S. at 434, and as such the court will
not exclude those hours from Cassady’s fee.
The board further objects to other billing entries
on a hodgepodge of unpersuasive grounds--for example,
objecting to certain hours of legal research because
the cases Cassady was apparently researching were
unpublished and therefore non-binding. Motion to
Strike (Doc. 33) at 3. The court is unaware of any
authority for the proposition that attorneys should
bill their time differently depending on whether the
cases they are reading appear in the Federal Reporter.
No time will be excluded from Cassady’s billing record
on this basis.
The board complains that there are “numerous
excessive, unnecessary, and redundant” time entries in
the billing record. Response to Motion for Summary
19
Judgment (Doc. 30) at 15. The board lists these
allegedly excessive entries but provides no evidence to
support its allegations. at 15-16. “As the
district court must be reasonably precise in excluding
hours thought to be unreasonable or unnecessary, so
should be the objections and proof from fee opponents.”
, 836 F.2d at 1301. The board’s generalized
objections to these ostensibly excessive hours are not
grounds for excluding those entries.
The board also identifies certain entries which
refer to time spent on unnecessary or unsuccessful
tasks. Among these entries are time spent on drafting
a motion for a pendency order and a reply brief
following a hearing on that motion, which amounts in
total to 4.8 hours. Revised Cassady Billing Record
(Doc. 73-1) at 30-33, 44-49. The motion for a pendency
order was unsuccessful in that the hearing officer
found homebound to be A.W.’s stay-put placement.
Stay-Put Order (Doc. 31-5) at 5. Because a “district
20
court must deduct time spent on discrete and
unsuccessful claims,” these hours will be excluded.
, 836 F.2d at 1302. Otherwise, the hours
objected to as unnecessary by the board all appear
reasonable and will not be excluded. ,
Response to Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 30) at 16
(objecting to “time preparing the statement of a
witness, who testified at the due process proceeding”).
Finally, the board objects to two further aspects
of the billing record: Cassady’s request for mileage as
part of his expenses and his exclusion of certain time
entries as part of his billing judgment. The mileage
issue will be taken up below with the rest of the
claimed expenses. As to the exclusion of certain hours
as part of Cassady’s billing judgment, the court does
not understand why the board objects to Cassady’s
decision not to bill for some hours, and the court
could not do any more to exclude these hours from
Cassady’s fee request than Cassady has already done.
21
Nor will the court exclude time for ‘individualized
education program’ (that is, IEP) team meetings based
on the board’s generalized objection to them, which
does not identify any particular entries that should be
excluded.9 The court also does not find that Cassady
protracted the litigation and will not reduce the fee
on that basis; the board’s allegations amount to
unsubstantiated complaints about the respectfulness of
the attorney’s conduct and do not show that the
litigation was prolonged as a result of his actions.
In sum, the court finds that Cassady’s hours on the
first due-process proceeding should be reduced by 4.8
9. The court also notes that the IEP team meetings
at issue appear to have been ordered by the hearing
officer either in his order implementing the parties’
settlement agreement in the first proceeding or in his
hearing decision and order following the second
proceeding. All that the IDEA requires for time spent
on IEP team meetings to be compensable is that the
meeting have been “convened as a result of
administrative proceeding or judicial action.”
20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(D)(ii). Indeed, the board seems
to recognize that time related to IEP team meetings is
taxable when the meeting is “convened as a result of an
administrative hearing or judicial action.” Response
to Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 30) at 24.
22
hours to account for time spent on the motion for a
pendency order. This leaves a total of 95.15 hours of
claimed attorney time at $ 325 per hour, for a total
lodestar figure of $ 30,923.75.
Cassady’s claimed and unchallenged 11.5 hours of
paralegal time at $ 80 per hour, which the court finds
to be a reasonable rate, add $ 920 to this figure. His
$ 491.25 of printing fees may be claimed, but the
$ 593.90 for mileage is non-taxable; as the Supreme
Court has explained, albeit in dicta, the language of
the IDEA’s attorneys’ fees provision “strongly
suggests” that it was not meant to make “participating
States liable for all expenses incurred by prevailing
parents in connection with an IDEA case--for example,
travel and lodging expenses.”
, 548 U.S. 291, 297 (2006).
As noted above, the total amount will also be reduced
by $ 1,796.37 to account for the inconsistencies in
Cassady’s various statements of his fee request and his
23
failure to follow the court’s order regarding the
clarification it requested. With all of the
adjustments above, the court finds that the total
compensable attorneys’ fees and costs for attorney
Cassady from the first due-process proceeding amount to
$ 30,538.63 prior to any adjustment for the degree of
success obtained in that proceeding.
2. Second Due-Process Proceeding
Cassady claims the following hours of work on the
second due-process proceeding:
• Due process petition: 6.5 hours
• Reviewing education records: 3.3 hours
• Handling subpoenas: 0.7 hours
• Amended due process petition: 0.9 hours
• Telephone hearings: 2.5 hours
• Conferences with co-counsel: 1.4 hours
• Work related to truancy issue: 0.8 hours
• Research and writing: 4.8 hours
24
• Handling witness/exhibit lists: 1.4 hours10
• Trial: 44.6 hours
• Post-trial briefing: 24.7 hours
• Reviewing opposing post-trial submissions: 0.7
hours
• Implementing judgment from hearing: 12.8 hours
• Communicating with hearing officer: 5.2 hours
• Communicating with client: 1.7 hours
• Communicating with co-counsel: 0.4 hours
• Communicating with opposing counsel: 1.0 hours
• Consulting with other attorneys: 0.1 hours
• File review: 0.3 hours
These claimed hours add up to 113.8 hours of
attorney time. Unlike with the first due-process
proceeding, this total is what Cassady says he is
claiming. Clarification (Doc. 73) at 9.
10. This total consists of 0.5 hours claimed in
Cassady’s declaration and 0.9 hours claimed in the
clarification. Cassady Decl. (Doc. 26-16) at 26;
Clarification (Doc. 73) at 8.
25
Accordingly, the court finds that Cassady is requesting
a total lodestar figure of $ 36,985.00 for his work on
the second due-process proceeding. Cassady also
requests 1.4 hours of paralegal time at $ 75 per hour,
printing expenses of $ 679.00, and mileage and lodging
expenses of $ 1,347.34. Cassady Decl. (Doc. 26-16)
at 28. For the reasons given above, the mileage and
lodging expenses will be excluded. The sum of these
requests without the excluded expenses is $ 37,769.00
for the second due-process proceeding.
In the board’s motion to strike, it objects again
to what it terms “prejudicial entries containing
unnecessary and inflammatory information.” Motion to
Strike (Doc. 33) at 9. For the reasons given above, no
time will be excluded on this basis. The board also
objects, as above, to entries it says have insufficient
detail. The court does not find that these entries are
too non-specific; for instance, in the entry that the
board highlights for this objection on the basis that
26
“Plaintiff’s counsel bills 12.5 hours and $4,062.50 for
‘legal research and writing,’” , Cassady in fact
provides considerably more detail than the board
acknowledges, Cassady Billing Hours on Second
Proceeding (Doc. 26-20) at 26.
The board elsewhere objects to Cassady’s billing of
0.8 hours connected to a truancy matter arising from
the litigation of the second due-process petition.
Response to Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 30) at
17; Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 25) at
16-18. After reviewing the record, the court finds
that this work was sufficiently related to the
underlying due-process proceeding that it is reasonable
for Cassady to claim this fraction of an hour, and as
such the court will not exclude this time.
The board claims generally that certain entries
regarding brief-writing are excessive. Response to
Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 30) at 18. As noted
above, generalized allegations of unreasonableness do
27
not provide an adequate basis for excluding time.
Moreover, the time objected to does not appear
unreasonable: The court notes that one of the entries
to which the board objects--the time spent drafting the
amended due-process petition--amounts to 0.9 billed
hours. What precisely the board finds excessive about
those 54 minutes of drafting time is left unmentioned.
The board also objects to both of J.P.’s attorneys
billing for the hours they spent traveling to hearings,
meetings, and mediation. at 18-19. The
Eleventh Circuit has held that an out-of-town
attorney’s travel time is compensable under the fee
provision of 42 U.S.C. § 1988 unless “it was
unreasonable not to hire qualified local counsel,”
, 706 F.2d 1205,
1208 (11th Cir. 1983), and the Supreme Court has noted
that the fee provision of § 1988 is “virtually
identical to the wording of” the IDEA’s fee provision,
, 548 U.S. at 302. The
28
evidence before the court indicates that no local
attorneys in Montgomery take special-education cases.
Sears Decl. (Doc. 26-14) at 49-50. Accordingly,
this time is compensable and will not be excluded.11
Finally, the board objects generally to the
presence of two attorneys for J.P. on the second
due-process proceeding and claims that many of the time
entries in both attorneys’ fee requests are duplicative
for that reason. Response to Motion for Summary
Judgment (Doc. 30) at 19-24. In many instances, the
board objects to the time entries of both attorneys for
the same item--for instance, objecting both to attorney
Cassady’s time spent at the due-process hearing and to
attorney Johnson’s time spent at that hearing.
11. The court recognizes that this results in the
apparent anomaly that travel time is compensable under
the IDEA’s fee petition but travel expenses such as
mileage are not, while travel expenses are compensable
under § 1988 but not under the “virtually identical”
fee provision of the IDEA. Until the Eleventh Circuit
revisits its decision in or the Supreme Court
revisits its dictum in
, this court is bound to apply the law as it
finds it.
29
at 21, 22-23. Elsewhere, the board objects to each
attorney’s review of evidence in the record or of
orders from the hearing officer. at 21-22.
“There is nothing inherently unreasonable about a
client having multiple attorneys, and they may all be
compensated if they are not unreasonably doing the same
work and are being compensated for the distinct
contribution of each lawyer.” , 836 F.2d at
1302. This is true here. Because, in the court’s
experience, no osmotic process allows attorneys to
transmit knowledge directly into co-counsel’s heads, it
is neither redundant nor duplicative for both attorneys
working on a case to review the record. Nor is it
duplicative for both attorneys involved in a case to
appear at a hearing. No time will be excluded on this
basis.
Because none of the board’s objections result in
the exclusion of time from attorney Cassady’s fee
request on the second due-process proceeding, the court
30
finds that the total reasonable fee for Cassady’s work
on that proceeding is $ 37,769.00, including paralegal
time and expenses. The court will consider later in
this order whether this fee should be reduced for any
reason.
In addition, attorney Johnson claims the following
hours of work on the second due-process proceeding:
• Due-process hearing: 37.2 hours
• Travel time: 11.5 hours
• Post-judgment IEP meeting: 4.5 hours
• Calls with co-counsel, client, and hearing
officer: 6.4 hours
• Correspondence with co-counsel, opposing
counsel, and hearing officer: 0.4 hours
• Review of correspondence: 2.1 hours
• Research and file review: 4.0 hours
In total, attorney Johnson claims 66.1 hours of
31
work on the second due-process proceeding.12 The
board’s objections to Johnson’s hours have all been
discussed above, and none provides a basis for reducing
his claimed hours. The court therefore finds that
Johnson’s claim to 66.1 hours for the second
due-process proceeding is reasonable.
As the court found above, a reasonable rate for
Johnson’s time is $ 300. Accordingly, the total
lodestar figure for Johnson’s work on the second
due-process proceeding is $ 19,830.00.
C. Adjustments to Fees
To reiterate, the court has found that the total
compensable fees and expenses for the time of J.P.’s
attorneys on the two underlying due-process proceedings
are as follows.
12. Johnson has also claimed certain hours for his
work litigating count II of J.P.’s complaint.
Johnson Decl. (Doc. 26-34) at 9-11. For the reasons
given in the court’s order of April 26, 2021 (Doc. 76),
this claim will not be considered by the court until
J.P.’s suit is resolved.
32
• First Proceeding (Cassady): $ 30,538.63
• Second Proceeding (Cassady): $ 37,769.00
• Second Proceeding (Johnson): $ 19,830.00
The court will now consider whether to reduce or
increase these fees based on the factors and
the degree of J.P.’s success in these proceedings.
As the court has previously found, the remedies
obtained by J.P. in the first due-process proceeding
“constitute a significant part of the relief that J.P.
sought in her due-process complaint.”
, 2021 WL 1270463, at *5. However, those remedies
did not “cover the entirety of the relief she sought,”
particularly because they “d[id] not include the
compensatory education she requested.”
The Supreme Court has held that “the degree of the
plaintiff’s success in relation to the other goals of
the lawsuit is a factor critical to the determination
of the size of a reasonable fee.”
, 489 U.S. 790. After comparing the remedies
33
obtained in the first due-process proceeding with the
claims made in J.P.’s petition in that proceeding, the
court finds that J.P. was successful on the majority of
her goals but fell short in certain areas. In
particular, the settlement agreement in the first
proceeding, which was entered as an order by the
hearing officer, did not include a finding that A.W.
had been denied a free appropriate public education
(FAPE) and did not include compensatory education.
As such, the court finds that the fee award to J.P.
for the first due-process proceeding should be reduced
by 15 % to account for the degree of her success in
that proceeding. This results in a reduction of
Cassady’s fee on the first proceeding from $ 30,538.63
to $ 25,957.84. However, J.P. was entirely successful
in the second due-process proceeding to enforce the
settlement agreement reached in the first proceeding,
and her award for Cassady and Johnson’s work on that
proceeding will not be reduced based on her degree of
34
success.
This leaves a total fee award to J.P. of
$ 83,556.84, including $ 63,726.84 for Cassady’s work
on the two due-process proceedings and $ 19,830.00 for
Johnson’s work on the second proceeding.
Upon review of the record, the court finds that the
attorneys appropriately exercised ‘billing judgment’ to
exclude certain hours from their fee requests.
, 168 F.3d 423, 428 (11th Cir.
1999). And after considering the relevant
factors, the court finds that the total award is
reasonable. The litigation at issue involved the work
of two experienced lawyers on a complex area of law and
a voluminous factual record. The questions raised by
these proceedings--particularly the questions of what
educational accommodations were required--presented
difficult issues regarding both the district’s
obligations under the IDEA and the particular needs of
A.W. in light of his disabilities. The case spanned
35
two proceedings over a year and a half. Cassady
Billing Hours on First Proceeding (Doc. 26-18) at 1
(noting intake in December 2017); Cassady Billing Hours
on Second Proceeding (Doc. 26-20) at 30 (noting
post-judgment IEP meeting in June 2019). It largely
ended in success for J.P.: As the court has found, J.P.
was successful on the bulk of her objectives in the
first proceeding and on substantially all of her
objectives in the second proceeding. And the final
award is akin to awards granted in similar cases,
, , No.
1:13-CV-582-WKW, 2016 WL 79986, at *9 (M.D. Ala. Jan.
6, 2016) (Watkins, C.J.) (granting award of $ 103,965
on IDEA fee claim), and is in line with the court’s
findings about the customary fee in the relevant
community and the experience and skill of the attorneys
involved.
* * *
36
Accordingly, plaintiff J.P. will be awarded
$ 83,556.84 in attorneys’ fees and costs for special
education case nos. 17-149 and 19-05. An appropriate
judgment will be entered.
DONE, this the 20th day of May, 2021.
/s/ Myron H. Thompson
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
37