A recent Law 360 story by Hayley Fowler, “Shook Hardy Fee Bid Defense Pans ‘Massive’ Vivint Trial Team,” reports that Shook Hardy & Bacon LLP attorneys have doubled down on their $3 million fee bid after nabbing a $189 million jury verdict against Vivint Smart Home Inc., quipping its staff of three and corresponding rates were far more reasonable than the smart home security company's use of five law firms and a "massive trial team."

Shook Hardy, representing CPI Security Systems Inc. in a trademark infringement suit in which Vivint was found to have tricked customers into switching home security providers, fired back at Vivint's attempts to whittle down the attorney fee award in a reply brief.  The law firm said the fees it's seeking are both reasonable given its staffing model and relevant to the claims on which CPI succeeded under the Lanham Act and North Carolina's Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

In attacking the fee bid, Vivint had accused Shook Hardy of charging excessive hourly rates and overusing partners for work that could have been done by associates.  But Shook Hardy said that CPI was represented for the duration of the suit by just three partners, whose hourly billing rates were at or below the average for western North Carolina.  "These allegations are startlingly ironic in light of Vivint's four-partner-per-deposition staffing model, Vivint's massive trial team, and the rates Vivint's own lawyers charge in commercial litigation matters," the reply brief states.

CPI first filed its request for $3 million in attorney fees earlier this month, noting that Vivint was found to have willfully engaged in a deceptive trade practice and didn't try to settle the case until the trial was well underway.  In its response, Vivint asked the court to delay ruling on the motion until after its own motion for a new trial is addressed.  If the award is granted, the fees should be significantly reduced, the smart home security company has argued, saying CPI failed to distinguish on which claims it's seeking to recover fees.

Vivint also slammed how CPI classified its billing rates and corresponding time entries, as well as its request to recover fees associated with a delay in the trial date.  But Shook Hardy countered that all of the work it performed leading up to and during the trial related to CPI's trademark and unfair business practices claims, under which the prevailing party can recover attorney fees. It also argued the billing entries were "adequately detailed."

The firm similarly rebuffed Vivint's criticism of its staffing model as "vague," saying in its reply brief that its smaller legal team was far more efficient than the five law firms working for Vivint, "one of which is one of the top five largest law firms in the country."  Finally, Shook Hardy said the work it did preparing for the original trial date last year was used for the actual trial in February, noting it was "careful to preserve work product to ensure that it would not need to be recreated."