A recent Law 360 story by Ryan Boysen, “Gibson Dunn Fees Halved in NY Eviction Law Dispute”, reports that attorneys from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP can recover $385,000 in fees for successfully blocking a pandemic-era anti-eviction law on behalf of New York landlords, after a federal judge rejected arguments that they should not be paid at all, but found their initial request of $735,000 "unreasonably excessive."
In a 26-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown said the Gibson Dunn team in question deserves credit for four months of frenzied work that finally led the U.S. Supreme Court to enjoin New York's COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act, or CEEFPA, in August 2021 — even though a new, nearly identical law was then passed shortly thereafter.
Judge Brown slashed the initial $735,000 fee request nearly in half after finding the 10-attorney team was too big, too "top-heavy" and billed too many hours, some of them at too-high hourly rates. That decision came even though the Gibson Dunn attorneys had argued the $735,000 figure already reflected "significantly discounted" rates and some pro bono hours for which they did not bill at all. "Upon review of the billing records, the court … finds that the number of hours expended by Gibson Dunn on this litigation to be unreasonably excessive for several reasons," Judge Brown said.
In civil rights cases the "prevailing party" is able to seek legal fees from their opponent, on the grounds that when a plaintiff "succeeds in remedying a civil rights violation," the benefits of doing so inure to the rest of society as well, according to the ruling. Judge Marks, the defendant in the landlords' initial lawsuit, had argued that the Gibson Dunn team should not receive any fees because its efforts only resulted in enjoining a law that had been set to lapse just days later.
"The stark truth is that plaintiffs failed to recover a judgment against [Marks] at all, rendering this fee application null," Judge Marks said in a brief opposing Gibson Dunn's fee request. Judge Brown said that analysis was not quite on the money, however. Even if a party receives only a stay or preliminary injunction, and never obtains a final judgment in its favor, it can still be considered a "prevailing party" if the court ruled in its favor on the merits, the ruling said.
"Moreover, 'a party prevails under [Section 1988 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure] where it obtains a preliminary injunction against enforcement of a law that is later amended or repealed,'" Judge Brown said, quoting the 2021 ruling in HomeAway.com Inc. v. City of New York. Nonetheless, Judge Brown declined to award the Gibson Dunn team the entirety of the fees it asked for.
His reductions began with the hourly rates sought by the Gibson Dunn team. Randy M. Mastro and Akiva Shapiro billed $550 each per hour; senior associates Jessica C, Benvenisty and William J. Moccia billed $375; midlevel associates Erich A. Bruhn, Lauren K. Myers and Seton Hartnett O'Brien $287.50; and junior associates Lavi M. Ben Dor, Bina Nayee and Maxwell A. Peck $200. These are the rates Gibson Dunn said had already been "significantly discounted" from the firm's "customary rates," the ruling said.
Judge Brown gave Mastro his $550 an hour rate given his widely acknowledged status as a towering figure of the New York Bar and his extensive experience with civil rights litigation, but reduced Shapiro's rate to $450 an hour. Judge Brown also reduced the senior associates' rates to $325 an hour, the midlevel associates' rates to $250 an hour, and the junior associates' rates to $150 an hour. Most of the reduction in the overall dollar amount received by the Gibson Dunn team came in the form of hours, however.
The attorneys claimed they spent nearly 2,000 hours on the CEEFPA case, but Judge Brown said that after he reviewed their billing records it seemed to him that Mastro, Shapiro and the senior associates spent too much time doing work that could have been done by lower-level associates, too much time in meetings, and too much time on "vague and block-billed" entries.
The entries with which he took issue included items such as "conference with team," "various correspondence with team members," "participate in team strategy call," "work on various issues going forward," "emails regarding status," and "work on various issues." "In sum … the court finds that an across-the-board reduction of 50% of the hours billed by plaintiffs' counsel is appropriate," Judge Brown wrote.