A recent NLJ story, “Texas Lawyer Wins Hard-Fought Fees in Bitter Disability Case,” reports that a Louisiana appeals court has awarded $2 million in fees and costs to a Houston lawyer who has spent more than a decade in a bitter battle against Louisiana’s attorney general over the lack of handicapped-accessible restrooms at a public university.  The Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal on September 5 entered the fee award for Seth Hopkins in a case he brought on behalf of Collette Covington, a student at McNeese State University.  Hopkins helped Covington obtain summary judgment in her 2001 federal civil rights case against the Lake Charles, La., college after she was unable to use the restrooms at the student union.

Covington, who suffers from epilepsy and uses a wheelchair, urinated on herself while unsuccessfully trying to enter the restroom in January 2001 as an undergraduate.  In its September 5 decision, the appeals panel issued scathing criticism against the Louisiana attorney general’s office and outside counsel who defended Covington’s American with Disabilities Act claim.  They had appealed an earlier award of fees to Hopkins, a solo practitioner.  The trial court granted Hopkins and four other attorneys representing Covington a rate of $240 per hour.  The appeals court rejected the challenge and raised the rate to $265 per hour.

“This has been an emotional case,” Hopkins said.  “Our intention has always been to make the campus and community better.”  The fee award included $265 per hour for 5,490 billable hours, at an interest rate of 9.5 percent beginning on Feb. 24, 2011.  The court also awarded Hopkins about $89,700 in appeals fees.  It assessed $57,250 in appeals costs against the university.