The Supreme Court Reaches Into Attorney’s Wallets

[WSJ_law_blog]

The Supremes today will tackle an issue very near and dear to our hearts: can attorney’s fee awards can be enhanced based on the quality of counsel?

The court will consider a Georgia civil rights suit, which in 2005 led to sweeping reforms of Georgia’s foster care system.

Federal civil rights law authorized the winning lawyers, led by the Children’s Rights Inc., to recover reasonable attorney’s fees for their work in the case.

The trial judge in the case determined that the lawyers had billed $6 million in the case, but the judge enhanced this fee by another $4.5 million on the basis of the lawyer’s “exceptional” success in the case. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the fee award.

The question presented to SCOTUS: Can an attorney’s fee award under a federal fee-shifting statute ever be enhanced based on quality of performance and results obtained?

Here’s a preview of the case from The National Law Journal and a nice overview from Scotusblog.

The plaintiffs in the case, foster children in Georgia, argue that results-based fee enhancements help ensure that civil rights laws will be vigorously enforced. They are represented by Paul Clement, a partner at King & Spalding and a former US Solicitor General under George W. Bush.

Here’s the children’s brief. They are supported by a broad-based group of Amici, including conservative civil rights groups, such as the Liberty Legal Institute, which focuses on religious freedoms.

“When the Constitution really is violated, you need to make sure there is some incentive for the violation to be redressed,” Liberty Legal’s Kelly Shackelford told the NLJ.

On the other side, Georgia governor Sonny Perdue, supported by the US Solicitor General Elena Kagan, assert that quality fee enhancements would actually harm the public by forcing taxpayers to pay additional compensation for attorneys. They also argue that fee enhancements could lead to arbitrary and unpredictable fee awards.

Here’s the governor’s brief in the case.

Civil rights lawyers, grab your wallet: this case could cut very close to home.