The Laffey Matrix (pdf) is used as a guideline for attorney fees in courts in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore area.  This fee schedule is also used by some other courts as well.  The fee schedule is prepared by the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia.  The matrix is intended to be used in cases which a fee-shifting statute permits the prevailing party to recover reasonable attorney fees.  The matrix does not apply in cases in which the hourly rate is limited by statute.  See 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d). 

The matrix is based on the hourly rates allowed by the District Court in Laffey v. Northwest Airlines, Inc.  The column headed “Experience” refers to the years following the attorney’s graduation from law school.  The various “backets” are intended to correspond to “junior associate” (1-3 years after law school graduation), “senior associates” (4-7 years), “experienced federal court litigators” (8-10 and 11-19 years), and “very experienced federal court litigators” (20 years or more).  See Laffey, 572 F. Supp. at 371. 

The hourly rates approved by the District Court in Laffey were work done principally in 1981-82.  The Matrix begins with those rates.  See Laffey, 572 F. Supp. at 371 (attorney rates) & 386 n. 74 (paralegal and law clerk rate).  The rates for subsequent yearly periods were determined by adding the change in the cost of living for the Washington, DC area to the applicable rate for the prior year, then rounding to the nearest multiple of $5 (up if within $3 of the next multiple of $5).  The result is subject to adjustment if appropriate to ensure that the relationship between the highest rate and the lower rates remains reasonably constant.  Changes in the cost of living are measured by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) for Washington-Baltimore, DC-MD-VA-WV, as announced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for May of each year.

Use of an updated Laffey Matrix was implicitly endorsed by the Court of Appeals in Save Our Cumberland Mountains v. Hodel, 857 F.2d 1516, 1525 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (en banc).  The Court of Appeals subsequently stated that parties may rely on the updated Laffey Matrix prepared by the United States Attorney's Office as evidence of prevailing market rates for litigation counsel in the Washington, DC area.  See Covington v. District of Columbia, 57 F.3 1101 &n. 14,1109 (D.C. Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 516 U.S. 1115 (1996). 

Lower federal courts in the District of Columbia have used this updated Laffey Matrix when determining whether fee awards under fee-shifting statutes are reasonable. See e.g., Blackman v. District of Columbia, 59 F. Supp. 2d 37, 43 (D.D.C. 1999); Jefferson v. Milvets System Technology, Inc., 986 F. Supp. 6, 11 (D.D.C. 1997); Ralph Hoar & Associates v. Nat'l Highway Transportation Safety Admin., 985 F. Supp. 1, 9-10 n.3 (D.D.C. 1997); Martini v. Fed. Nat'l Mtg Ass'n, 977 F. Supp. 482, 485 n.2 (D.D.C. 1997); Park v. Howard University, 881 F. Supp. 653, 654 (D.D.C. 1995).

To see the Laffey Matrix fee schedule visit:

http://www.justice.gov/usao/dc/divisions/Laffey_Matrix%202014.pdf