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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Law - Lawyer in Kentucky schools case seeks fees, bonus

Early this month the ILB had an entry headed "Attorney who represented Seattle parents in a race-based lawsuit aims to recover his pro bono legal costs," and including this quote from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Seattle Public Schools, already stung from losing its long-running legal fight over voluntary desegregation measures, now faces a new trial: paying the seven-figure legal fees of the parents who sued the district.

Just one day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the district cannot use a racial tiebreaker in determining school assignments, the parents' "pro bono" attorney indicated he will try to recover legal costs he estimates will be seven figures.

"This stuff is expensive," attorney Harry Korrell, a partner at the Seattle law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, said Friday. "There's no way to fight in federal court ... without racking up quite a legal bill." * * *

Pressing a public school district to pay more than $1 million in legal fees to a large law firm "is a little contrary to the idea that pro bono is for the public good," said Shannon McMinimee, an attorney for the district.

A second ILB entry, on July 7th, quoted from an American Lawyer story headed "Shhh! Pro Bono's Not Just for Liberals Anymore: Very quietly, big law firms are taking on conservative causes as well,"

Recall that the Supreme Court's June 28th rulings involved two school districts, Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky.

Today Chris Kenning and Andrew Wolfson of the Louisville Courier Journal have a story headlined "Lawyer in schools case seeks fees, bonus: Jefferson parents' attorney asks judge to set payment." Interestingly, there is no mention of "pro bono" in this Kentucky story, it is written solely in terms of civil rights laws, while there is no mention of "civil rights" in the Seattle stories, they are all couched in terms of "pro bono." Some quotes from today's story:

A Louisville lawyer who successfully challenged Jefferson County Public Schools' racial-integration policy wants the district to pay his legal fees, plus a bonus, according to a motion filed yesterday.

At least one legal expert says the final figure could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

Attorney Teddy Gordon, who represented parents in a lawsuit decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last month, isn't saying exactly how much he thinks the district should pay him, but he wants more than $200 an hour, and a bonus to reflect the case's impact on schools nationwide.

"I have spent thousands of my own money on expenses and court costs," he said in a statement, while declining to say how much he thinks he deserves. "Because I am a sole practitioner who has worked hundreds of hours on these cases, I was not able to take on other clients."

Gordon's filing leaves it up to U.S. District Judge John Heyburn to determine how much he should be paid. School district lawyers declined to comment on his request.

But attorney David Friedman of Louisville, who has litigated many civil-rights cases, said Gordon almost certainly can expect to get a six-figure fee, partly because the case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. * * *

The winning parties in civil-rights cases can recover attorneys' fees from the losers, and a premium or bonus can be added for complex cases. A judge usually considers the time spent, work quality and scope, experts and attorneys said.

In Gordon's case, Jefferson County Public Schools will be responsible for the fee. District officials said that insurance, after a $50,000 deductible, would cover the cost of any awarded fees and damages, and that it would not come out of the district's budget.

Before this request, Gordon sought $44,988 in fees after the initial U.S. District Court trial of the Meredith case, as well as a bonus that would bring his total fee to $150,000.

Heyburn, who was the judge in that trial, deferred ruling on the request and said he would reconsider it after the appeals had run their course, according to Byron Leet, a school district attorney. Gordon requested a fee of $60,000 for his hourly work in a 1998 Central High School case -- which led to a 2000 decision that limited the consideration of race in admissions to four magnet schools, including Central -- as well as a $150,000 bonus. Heyburn awarded him $38,800 for his hourly work and no bonus, according to court records and Leet.

In the Meredith case, Gordon said he wants a fee "equal to if not greater" than that paid to Leet and other school district attorneys, and all related costs. The district says it doesn't know that amount because insurance has paid the cost of contract attorneys. Leet also said he could not immediately provide that amount.

Civil-rights cases have allowed winning parties to recover their attorneys' fees since 1976, when Congress decided to level the playing field so that private citizens with little or no money could bring actions against state and local government to enforce civil-rights laws.

Courts elsewhere have approved some substantial awards. Last year, for example, the Dover School District in Pennsylvania was forced to pay $1 million in legal fees to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which successfully represented parents who sued the district for teaching the theory of intelligent design in ninth-grade biology classes.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 29, 2007 12:51 PM
Posted to General Law Related