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Category: Practice Area: Civil Rights / Public Interest

Duane Morris Legal Bill Called ‘Seriously Inflated’

March 7, 2024

A recent Law.com story by Amanda O’Brien, “’Seriously Inflated’ Duane Morris Bill Highlights Risk When Big Law and Public Clients Lack Alignment”, reports that, as Duane Morris faces scrutiny over publicly obtained emails alleging that the firm delivered “seriously inflated” bills to a suburban Philadelphia school district following its investigation into allegations of rampant bullying against LGBTQ+ students, the dustup underlines how law firms’ work on behalf of public-sector clients demands a heightened level of communication.

The firm landed in the spotlight in the aftermath of a 151-page internal investigation report for the Central Bucks School District put together in April 2023 by a team led by partners Bill McSwain, the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Michael Rinaldi.  The report ultimately refuted allegations made by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2022 claiming that the school district created a hostile environment for queer students.

The investigation leading to the report took approximately six months, with the district bringing on McSwain and the firm in November 2022.  The bills referenced in the memo span from November 2022 to the end of October 2023, and outside reporting by The Philadelphia Inquirer indicates the bills, totaling around $1.1 million, were paid in December 2023. 

“One could spend countless hours picking apart this bill,” the email, authored by Edward Diasio, a partner at Montgomery County-based Wisler Pearlstine, said.  “The bottom line, from my standpoint, is that it is seriously inflated, and should be reduced considerably.”

Among the issues highlighted in the email were complaints of inefficient time management, vague time entries for hundreds of thousands of dollars of work, and an excessive number of attorneys engaged in repetitive tasks.   “The issue is that the Engagement Letter indicated two attorneys would lead the matter, and rely on help (where appropriate) at lower hourly rates,” the email raids.  “This was a good strategy in theory, but it was poorly implemented by Duane Morris.  The District should have benefitted from the efficiencies such a structure should have generated…”

“What happened, though, was that an army of attorneys was brought in and any efficiencies that could have been achieved were dramatically outweighed by the inefficiencies associated with managing such a large team and all of the internal communication and coordination that come along with that,” the memo’s introduction concludes.

Keeping the Client in Mind

According to several consultants, establishing client expectations around billing practices is a weak point, even a “lost opportunity,” for law firms. At the center of the issue, consultants said, is keeping in mind the client’s expertise when it comes to litigation or other legal matters.

“With corporate clients, often the client is an in-house lawyer. With public sector clients, you’re frequently dealing with people who aren’t lawyers,” Mantra Partner founder and CEO Marci Taylor explained.  “It’s more of an incentive to be as descriptive as possible about the nature and complexity of the task.  You’re writing knowing that there’s a high likelihood that your invoices will be made public.”

Law firm consultant Tim Corcoran also acknowledged that billing isn’t a one-size-fits all practice.  “There is quite a bit of forethought that goes into billing strategies because different circumstances call for different approaches,” Corcoran observed, contrasting in-house lawyer clients to government and public sector clients, and these also to third-party bill reviewers used by many corporate clients. 

Corcoran and consultant Stephen Ruben indicated that billing strategies and professional responsibilities change slightly according to the type of client.   “Normally if you’re dealing with a large corporation or corporations that have a lot of legal matters, they’re [used to] dealing with legal matters over time and have a greater ability to manage the relationship … they know what to ask for, they know what to expect,” Ruben explained.  “The firm has a different obligation when a law firm is dealing with people who are less experienced and sophisticated in dealing with lawyers and litigation.  Litigation is messy by nature.  One would think that when you are dealing with people who are not as experienced in litigation, you have a greater obligation to take them through the process step by step.”

And as for third-party billing reviewers, Corcoran noted that some firms take into account that reviewers might shave off some of the bill.  “It’s like the shopping trick.  Some firms will bill accordingly knowing that clients who put them through this review process will shave off some eventually,” Corcoran said.  “They may also take the exact opposite approach by only billing for the specific things enumerated … in the outside counsel guidelines, because they don’t want to risk the relationship knowing anything outside of that scope will have to be justified or defended.”

Setting Expectations Early

Law firms often fail to set client expectations on billing, Corcoran noted.  As a result, Corcoran said, it is often on clients to take the initiative and set expectations on billing for law firms.  And while some corporate clients may have the sophistication and resources to take charge here, public sector clients—with a shorter history in turning to Big Law for complex engagements—don’t have the same knowhow.  That can be a recipe for frustrations, as the Central Bucks School District’s review demonstrates.

“Failure to set or manage client expectations … is probably the greatest missed opportunity [at law firms],” said Corcoran.  “What lawyers believe is that because they cannot predict with absolute certainty how long something will take, the outcome, and what it will cost, they view it as binary, so few will provide a budget or cashflow guidance to help a client squirrel away funds.”

“It’s up to the client then to impose restrictions or guidelines or checkpoints to say ‘you need to let us know what your work in progress is, we need to be ahead of the pace of your billing,’” Corcoran continued.  “As a former CEO myself who’s managed the law department, I cared about the total amount we’ve got to budget for this … [I’d ask to] get me in the ballpark [of how much something would cost], even on a quarterly basis.”

“Few law firms do that because clients don’t ask for it,” Corcoran added.  The risk, of course, of avoiding early billing discussions is an unhappy client when the bill comes due.  “Not giving a heads-up is zero risk unless the client is unhappy … [then] the risk is that [clients] will subject the invoices to deeper scrutiny,” Corcoran said.  “The risk is you will expect one income stream and get something less than that … [and that] repeated behaviors like that can cause clients to go elsewhere.”

“Client defections are based on dissatisfaction not with the legal work but how the client is treated by the firm almost as an afterthought,” Corcoran continued. “They’re missing out on the ability to retain the client.”  Ruben suggested that firms address billing expectations early on in the relationship with a client, noting that “in generally, a good law firm will state expectations.  That’s what the retainer agreement is about.”

“It should include terms about how [the client] is going to be billed, and there should be conversations about that,” Ruben said.  “You’re dealing with people and when people are involved in a transaction, there’s often going to be a miscalculation of expectations on either side … when you have a monthly bill, issues that need to be managed more quickly come to the attention of both parties.”

Connecticut State Worker Seeks Fees After Trial Win

March 1, 2024

A recent Law 360 story by Brian Steele, “Conn. State Worker Wants Atty Fees After Noose Trial Win”, reports that a Black employee of Connecticut's state energy and environmental regulator is asking a federal judge to award more than $200,000 in attorney fees after he prevailed in a lawsuit alleging that he was racially tormented and exposed to nooses in a hostile work environment.

The Law Office of W. Martyn Philpot Jr. represents Omar Tyson, who won $5,000 in a Feb. 14 jury verdict on his claims that his supervisors at the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, or DEEP, failed to protect him from a co-worker's racial hostility.  Tyson asked U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer of the District of Connecticut for a ruling that recognizes certain "economic realities" of prosecuting the suit, arguing further that he is entitled to the award under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and court rules.

"It is not hyperbole to suggest that civil rights cases such as the one at bar are often lost, with no recovery," Tyson's memorandum said.  "The results of a loss of this sort can often be calamitous for both the client and a small firm where there has been a substantial expenditure of time and expense.  Moreover, the incentive created by Congress was to attract competent attorneys to take on socially significant, yet difficult cases, on a contingent fee basis."  The motion asks for $200,750 in fees based on a $500 hourly rate, and about $7,700 in expenses like taking depositions and issuing subpoenas.

Tyson claimed in his November 2021 amended complaint that he suffered race-based mistreatment starting in 2011, also alleging that on two occasions, he found a hangman's noose near his workstation.  A colleague taunted and bothered Tyson at work, once pointing a cane at him as if it were a gun, and referred to the Black community as "you people" and "your people" when Tyson was present, among other offensive comments and behavior, according to the complaint.

A rate of $500 per hour "is the prevailing rate in the community" and similar to the fees charged by comparable attorneys, according to Tyson, who paid a $5,000 retainer.

"In this matter, the plaintiff's attorney's fee award should be determined in accordance with the well-established lodestar calculation method," the memo said.  "The pertinent factors for calculating the lodestar include, but are not expressly limited to: the novelty and complexity of the litigation involved, the skill and experience of the attorney, the overall quality of the representation, and the understanding that payment of fees will generally not come until the end of the case, if at all."

Federal Judge: Can’t Use ChatGPT to Justify Attorney Fees

February 22, 2024

A recent Law 360 story by Madison Arnold, “Law Firm Scolded For ‘Misbegotten’ ChatGPT Use in Fee Bid”, reports that a Manhattan federal judge criticized a special education-focused law firm or citing ChatGPT calculations to back up its attorney fee request of more than $100,000, calling the move "utterly and unusually unpersuasive."  U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer knocked the fees for the Cuddy Law Firm PLLC down to just $53,050.13 plus interest for work done in a case brought by a parent on behalf of a child against the New York City Department of Education involving two administrative hearings.

The firm had asked for $113,484.62 plus interest after securing judgments against the department, saying the feedback from the generative artificial intelligence program supported its request.  "As the firm should have appreciated, treating ChatGPT's conclusions as a useful gauge of the reasonable billing rate for the work of a lawyer with a particular background carrying out a bespoke assignment for a client in a niche practice area was misbegotten at the jump," Judge Engelmayer wrote.

An attorney for the department, Tom Lindeman, said in a statement to Law360 Pulse that his side is pleased with the decision.  "The firm's use of ChatGPT to support its aggressive fee request was deemed inappropriate and, as the court determined, the city's prior offer to resolve fees was fair and reasonable," Lindeman said.  The parent of an unnamed child, referred to as G.G., hired the Cuddy Law Firm.  G.G. has hyperactivity disorder, a language disorder, a developmental coordination disorder and acute stress disorder, according to the decision.

The child's parent, referred to as J.G., initiated two due process hearings, alleging in the first that the department failed to provide the child with a free appropriate public education for the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years.  That included failing to provide annual reviews, evaluations and appropriate education services and implementing special education teacher support services, as mandated by the child's individualized education program from January 2018.

The Cuddy Law Firm sought compensation for its work in both hearings and resulting fees litigation.  While the firm doesn't rely predominantly on ChatGPT-4 in arguing for its billing rates, it did present the findings of the AI program as a "cross-check," Judge Engelmayer said.  He added that the law firm failed to identify any information it inputted into ChatGPT for it to rely on to confirm its calculation, among other omissions.

"The court therefore rejects out of hand ChatGPT's conclusions as to the appropriate billing rates here.  Barring a paradigm shift in the reliability of this tool, the Cuddy Law Firm is well advised to excise references to ChatGPT from future fee applications," the judge said.  Because of the inefficiencies of the ChatGPT argument, as well as its other arguments, the court decided to reduce the attorney fees awarded to the Cuddy Law Firm.

"For the reasons stated, the court grants J.G.'s motion for an award of fees and costs, but in an amount below that sought.  J.G. is awarded $52,386.01 in fees and $664.12 in costs, for a total of $53,050.13, plus post-judgment interest at the applicable statutory rate," Judge Engelmayer said.  Outside the ChatGPT issue, the court reduced the fees in part because the parent and the Cuddy Law Firm had not given evidence that the case presented novel or complex legal or factual issues.

Delaware High Court Clarifies Fee-Shifting in Public Interest Cases

January 31, 2024

A recent Law 360 story by Rose Krebs, “Del. Justices Clarify Fee-Shifting in Public Interest Cases”, reports that, in a decision offering guidance on attorney fee-shifting in public interest cases, Delaware's Supreme Court reversed a decision that awarded fees to nonprofit organizations that successfully challenged the use of outdated tax assessments in determining funding for the state's public schools.

In a 49-page ruling, the state's high court undid a Chancery Court order from last year that awarded roughly $1.5 million in fees to Delawareans for Educational Opportunity and the NAACP Delaware State Conference of Branches.  Left in place was the award of roughly $73,000 in legal expenses to the two groups, which hadn't been contested by the litigation parties.  "The parties in this appeal raise important questions regarding fee-shifting in the public interest litigation context," Justice Karen L. Valihura wrote for the court.

At issue were legal fees awarded after the two nonprofit organizations brought several lawsuits "that sought increased funding for Delaware's public schools," the Supreme Court said.  "The suits were brought against multiple Delaware public officials in their official capacities, some of whom were responsible for tax collection in Delaware's three counties," Justice Valihura wrote.

In a May 2020 opinion, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster ruled in favor of the two organizations, agreeing that the counties' tax assessment methods, which had relied on values from as far back as 46 years ago, treated owners of similar properties unequally.  "Appellees filed suit against the defendants because they believed that Delaware public schools were not providing an adequate education to disadvantaged students," the Supreme Court ruling said. "Appellees pointed to a broken system for funding public schools as one of the reasons why Delaware's public schools have fallen short."  The Supreme Court decision explained that in the state, "approximately one-third of funding for public schools is derived from local taxes levied by individual school districts."

"When school districts in Delaware levy local taxes, they use the county assessment rolls prepared by New Castle County, Kent County, and Sussex County," the ruling said.  "If there are deficiencies or problems with the counties' tax assessment rolls, those deficiencies or problems will affect the school districts' ability to levy taxes."  In his ruling, Vice Chancellor Laster said that "owners whose properties have appreciated more pay a lower effective rate than owners whose properties have appreciated less."

"The counties' outdated assessments conceal a reality of non-uniformity beneath a cloak of uniformity," the vice chancellor said.  His ruling came after the Chancery Court had bifurcated the litigation into a "County Track" to handle claims against county defendants, and a "State Track" to adjudicate claims against state officials, according to the Supreme Court opinion.

The "County Track" litigation was further divided, the Supreme Court said, including a "merits" phase that went to trial in 2019, leading to the vice chancellor's post-trial decision.  As proceedings continued following Vice Chancellor's Laster's ruling, an agreement was reached by the parties "pursuant to which each county agreed to conduct a general tax reassessment," according to the Supreme Court's decision.  The two nonprofit organizations sought an award of attorney fees and expenses in May 2021, and in two separate decisions, the Chancery Court first determined that the groups were entitled to the costs and then subsequently awarded the amounts to be paid by the defendants, the Supreme Court said.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court relied on two of its prior decisions, in Dover Historical Society v. Dover Planning Commission, in 2006, and Korn v. New Castle County, in 2007. In the Dover decision, the Supreme Court "rejected fee-shifting in a non-taxpayer, public interest suit that ultimately caused a government entity to 'perform properly,'" the opinion said.  "In Korn, fees were awarded under the 'common benefit exception' to the American Rule because the plaintiffs created for all taxpayers a tangible benefit that was both 'substantial' and 'quantifiable,'" the Supreme Court said.

The American Rule, which originated in the U.S. Supreme Court's 1796 decision in Arcambel v. Wiseman, provides that "litigants are generally responsible for paying their own legal fees absent certain limited exceptions," the Supreme Court said.  Exceptions for which fees can be shifted include cases in which a litigation party has acted in bad faith or the litigation "creates a common benefit," the high court's opinion said.

The two nonprofit organizations had argued in a filing that the Chancery Court had correctly determined they were entitled to fees and expenses for obtaining benefits "beyond the social good of making the government comply with the law."  Among those benefits were increasing annual tax benefits for school districts due to the agreement to perform updated tax reassessments, as well as "fixing deficiencies in the state equalization funding system," the groups asserted.

In an opening brief, the public officials argued that the Chancery Court had "ignored" Dover and incorrectly applied Korn, and that the court had ordered "defendants to pay fees for benefitting parties with whom those defendants have no identity of interest, which is both unprecedented and unwarranted."  The Chancery Court's "expansion of fee-shifting in public interest litigation should be curtailed," they argued.

In an amicus brief, the Delaware League of Local Governments urged the Supreme Court to reverse the Chancery Court's decision, arguing that it "improperly created a newfound common law exception to the American Rule by allowing fee-shifting ... for 'public benefit' litigation," the Supreme Court said.  On its website, the league describes itself as "a non-partisan, non-profit organization comprised of local government leaders."

The league had argued that a "mere social benefit does not justify an exception to the American Rule and it is up to the legislature, not the courts, to determine whether fee-shifting is appropriate in public interest litigation," the Supreme Court's decision said.  In its ruling, the justices agreed with the public officials and the league, saying the Chancery Court's decision exceeded "the bounds of Dover."  The Chancery Court's decision "omits any discussion of the guidance we offered in Dover as to the narrow parameters of the exception in the public interest context," the court ruled.

"Viewing this litigation through the prism of Dover's guidance, we conclude that the benefits achieved fall within Dover's 'perform properly' bounds," the Supreme Court said.  "Accordingly, we hold that the trial court erred in determining that the common benefit doctrine applied."  The high court said it was "not persuaded that the other benefits identified" warranted an award of fees and called some of the purported benefits "speculative."

The Chancery Court also erred by determining that the Korn decision "was not limited to taxpayer suits, but rather, it applied more broadly to public interest suits," the Supreme Court's ruling said.  "We decline to extend Korn beyond taxpayer suits that confer a quantifiable, non-speculative benefit to all taxpayers," the justices said.

New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer said in a statement: "We are proud that we just saved taxpayers $1.48 million, a substantial portion of which would have been paid to out of state New York lawyers.  This decision, from Delaware's highest court, means countless public funds will be at considerably less risk in future lawsuits against towns, cities, counties and local governments across Delaware."

Boston Urged to Settle Case as Legal Bill Climbs

December 29, 2023

A recent Law 360 story by Chris Villani, “Boston Urged To Settle Shooting Case As Legal Bill Climbs”, reports that during an emotional hearing, a federal judge ordered both sides in a lawsuit over the fatal shooting of a Black man by Boston police to try to work out a deal, grilling the city's attorneys on their hourly fees in expensive litigation that has been stalled by numerous discovery violations.  While saying that the city still faces a "substantial" risk of default in the now six-year-old case, U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf lamented at the end of a six-hour hearing that Boston is paying more than a dozen attorneys, including recently hired Nixon Peabody LLP, to defend the case.

"I don't know of any municipality that has enough money," Judge Wolf said before counting the attorneys sitting shoulder-to-shoulder at the tables in front of him.  "There are 14 lawyers sitting in the courtroom being paid by the city to litigate the effects of the city's repeated failures to provide discovery and to obey court orders," the judge said.  "Most civil cases settle, and I don't think that inertia or oversight should be a reason that settlement in these circumstances isn't seriously explored."

Judge Wolf has repeatedly threatened to hand the city an automatic loss in a case he said is "more messed up than any case I have had in 39 years."  The plaintiff, Hope Coleman, says her son Terrence Coleman was 31 and suffering from schizophrenia when she called 911 in an effort to get him into treatment in 2016.  The responding officers, Kevin Finn and Garrett Boyle, say Terrence Coleman attacked responding EMTs and the officers themselves with a knife during an altercation that ended with Coleman being shot and killed.

At the outset of the marathon proceeding, the judge asked Nixon Peabody attorney Brian Kelly what the city was paying for his services. Kelly said it was $750 per hour, $500 less than his usual rate.  Turning to George Vien of Donnelly Conroy & Gelhaar LLP, an attorney for former Boston Police Commissioner William Evans, Judge Wolf asked, "Are you a bargain compared to Mr. Kelly?"

"I am a bargain in many ways, Your Honor," Vien said, adding that he was billing at $600 per hour.  Leonard Kesten of Brody Hardoon Perkins & Kesten LLP, representing the officers, objected to the airing of lawyers' hourly fees in the first of several tense back-and-forth moments between him and the judge.

"All my clients have ever wanted is a trial," Kesten said. "And they want a trial now, so they can clear their names. That's what should be happening."  "Excuse me," Judge Wolf said, cutting him off. "Are you going to answer the question of what's your hourly rate?"  "I think that my hourly rate is $300 per hour," Kesten said.

In addition to paying its own attorneys, the city has forked over $500,000 to pay for discovery mishaps that an attorney for Coleman, William Fick of Fick & Marx LLP, said "dwarfs anything I have seen in over 20 years of law practice, or in any case I have ever read."

"I feel a bit like I am surveying a battlefield with rabbit holes," Fick said as he argued that default should enter against the city. "Each one of those rabbit holes has a detailed and really jaw-dropping story about a discovery deficiency."  Fick said over 80,000 pages of documents have been turned over, adding that they "should have been produced years ago."

The city has argued that there is no need for a default, citing the hiring of Nixon Peabody and an outside e-discovery expert, as well as the $500,000 and counting it has paid Coleman's lawyers for their trouble.  "This is in fact a very important case, a very significant case, and a trial would let the public see what really happened," Kelly said.  "Plaintiff wants to win this with procedural maneuvering, because they know if it goes to a jury, they may well lose and get nothing."