Fee Dispute in Gun Case Heats Up Dick Heller of D.C. v. Heller fame has his gun permit ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/18/AR2008081801004.html?hpid=moreheadlines ), but his lawyers -- the ones who successfully argued for his individual right to keep and bear arms -- are still trying to pry their fees from the District of Columbia. Initially, both sides expressed a hope that the matter could be settled out of court, but discussions quickly unraveled. In August, the BLT reported ( http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2008/08/heller-lawyers.html ) that Heller’s team of lawyers, led by Gura & Possessky’s Alan Gura, wanted nearly $3.6 million in attorneys’ fees and costs for about six years of toil on the case. They asked Judge Emmet Sullivan for a fee enhancement, based on the exceptional nature of the case -- “one of the most profound and important victories available under our system of justice,” Gura declared in his fee request. The fee enhancement would multiply each lawyer’s hours by two, so Gura’s estimated 1,661 hours, at a rate of $557 per hour, would earn him about $1.9 million. After negotiations between the parties collapsed in September, the District filed an opposition brief ( http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/files/47-1.pdf ), complaining that the $3.6 million request was “highly unreasonable.” The city proposed $798,232 in fees and $9,480 in litigation costs. Acting D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles conceded the victory was “significant” and that the attorneys' performance was "above-average," but he said a fee enhancement was unwarranted because the Heller team succeeded on proven legal theories -- rather than novel ones -- and with the help of nearly 50 amicus briefs from various states and members of Congress. Nickles accused the team of “over-preparation” and of larding its bill with hours from minor and unsuccessful motions. He also pointed out that three of the seven attorneys on the Heller team did not keep time records, meaning Judge Sullivan would have to rely on the “self-serving recollections of counsel years after the fact.”
Last week, Gura filed this ( http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/files/hellerGura.pdf ) reply, blasting the D.C. government for mounting a defense valued “into the millions” while attempting to diminish the work of the Heller team, which includes Gura, Clark Neily III, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, and the Cato Institute’s Robert Levy, the wealthy businessman-turned-lawyer who financed the litigation. The District tapped O’Melveny & Myers; Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; and Covington & Burling for help. O’Melveny veteran Walter Dellinger handled the Supreme Court argument. Gura argued for Heller, his first appearance before the high court. “No person faintly knowledgeable with the practice of law could credibly claim that a case of this magnitude would be litigated in less than 1,000 hours by its lead counsel,” Gura said. The Heller team, he added, "should not be paid for winning, only a very small fraction of what the other side spent or would have spent losing.” http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2008/10/fee-dispute-in.html ************************************************** Professor Joseph Olson, J.D., LL.M. o- 651-523-2142 Hamline University School of Law (MS-D2037) f- 651-523-2236 St. Paul, MN 55113-1235 c- 612-865-7956 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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