Attorney Demanded $308,000 In Fees, He Only Got $17,325.
“We publish to underline that contemporaneous time records are the best evidence of lawyers’ hourly work. They are not indispensable, but they eclipse other proofs. Lawyers know this better than anyone. They might heed what they know.”
This early-on observation in Taylor v. County of Los Angeles (Traylor), Case No. B296537 (2d Dist., Div. 8 June 10, 2020) (published) is a crucial one to be paid attention to. The particular facts and result are not pretty, but we leave you readers to draw your own inferences.
For a brief period of time, appealing attorney represented plaintiff in a wrongful death civil rights police shooting. Plaintiff then replaced attorney with other attorneys, who filed suit and obtained a $7 million settlement, with former attorney never turning over his case files. That, we surmise from reading the opinion, is where the fun (or tragedy, depending on your perspective) began. Former attorney sent all kind of contradictory invoices and documentation for hours expended on the case, but he filed an attorney’s lien and sought $308,000 in fees. Plaintiff claimed at most $4,554 was owed, after noting the various inconsistencies in the hours claimed by former attorney and rounded-up entries of a hard-to-digest reaction (and even suggesting that attorney did not work, but actually went on a fishing trip). At an unreported hearing, the trial judge awarded $17,325 in fees in the lien proceeding.
Former attorney’s appeal was unsuccessful, resulting in a published opinion with some very colorful quotes by Justice Wiley on behalf of a 3-0 panel, suggesting that appealing attorney should be grateful that he got that much. There are numerous takeaways from this decision.
First, the failure to have a reporter’s transcript, when it comes to amount of fees requested, is fatal with respect to appellate challenges. Second, appealing attorney never credibly explained the recordkeeping discrepancies (not to mention this was not helped by the failure to turn over case files). Third, reconstructed time records are entitled to diminished “credibility weight” as compared to contemporaneous records of timekeeping—after all, “[a]ccuracy is a professional virtue and a systemic concern” especially given the high costs of legal services these days. Fourth, reading in between the lines, appealing attorney only really requested his demand after learning of the $7 million settlement—again, a “weight” factor for determining the reasonableness of fee request substantiation.
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