Higher Hourly Rate Awarded For Out-Of-County Attorney Affirmed Where Successful SLAPP Defendant Showed Good Faith Effort To Hire Local Counsel.
We discussed Marshall v. Webster, Case No. C088240 (3d Dist. August 27, 2020) in our August 27, 2020 post – a partially published case, with the fee discussion unpublished.
In Marshall, the Third District affirmed the trial court’s award to successful SLAPP defendant of attorney fees at a higher hourly rate than that of local counsel. Typically, the amount of award is computed using the lodestar method – multiplying the number of hours reasonably expended by the reasonable prevailing hourly rate in the community for similar work. However, in this case, defendant made the requisite good faith effort to hire local counsel before hiring counsel from an outside community where the local prevailing rates were higher.
We can now report that the previously unpublished fee portion of the Marshall opinion was published on September 4, 2020.
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