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Lawyers for people who sued over Boston council redistricting want the city to pay them more than $450,000 for their work
By adamg on Fri, 08/04/2023 - 12:53pm
The three attorneys who convinced a federal judge to toss the Boston City Council's initial redistricting plan today filed a request that they be reimbursed for their time and work.
In a filing with US District Court Judge Patti Saris, attorneys Paul Gannon, Glenn Hannington and Frederick Dashiell said the $451,450.40 they are seeking - 632.7 hours times an hourly rate of $700, plus roughly $8,600 in court costs - is actually a bargain:
Numerous other cases of this magnitude command significantly higher attorney fee awards. ... Plaintiffs’ counsel has also underbilled by not including numerous hours spent by non-core attorneys and other support staff in their offices. The requested rate of $700.00 is eminently reasonable for this type of complex litigation specifically in light of recent inflation.
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Comments
Hahahahahahahahaahah!!!!!
Hahhaahahahahah!!!!
I thought the councilors who
I thought the councilors who were unhappy with the redistricting map paid these people with campaign funds...?
Sidenote, the new (apparently final) council map is a disgrace. The South End & Fenway both got cut-up and carved into districts that have little in common with their residents. All in the name of ensuring the population is more even.
Welcome
To the Westie/JP party.
They should not have to pay
Whether or not they paid with campaign funds is irrelevant. The majority of the city council and mayor ignored the fact it was unconstitutional and these people had to take them to court, the city should pay. And if taxpayers are angry take it up with the people who screwed it up in the first place. Also, The city hired an outside law firm to defend them which cost the pretty much the same amount of money.
$700/hour is horribly
$700/hour is horribly unreasonable, even for a Boston lawyer. I thought $400/hour was the typical obscene rate for a lawyer, and this is way beyond that.
Paying these three people almost half a million dollars is clearly not an efficient way to determine fairness of electoral districts.
Who is going to take a stand against this highway robbery of public funds?
Hopefully not someone
Who charges $1000/hr
You have no idea
what the City of Boston pays out annually for legal fees, judgements, settlements and fines. $450k is minuscule in comparison.
It's actually not unreasonable...
And particularly when you're paying for a specific niche specialty.
Rate not surprising, hours seem high
I find it hard to believe they spent over 600 hours on this given the relatively short amount of time from when the map was released to when they got to court.
It depends on the size and
It depends on the size and prestige of firm, location, field of practice, etc. Top billing rates in Biglaw (i.e. large corporate law firms) are north of $2,000 an hour in NYC nowadays. Rumors are Paul Weiss Rifkind bills some of its second-year associates at $995/hour. So depending on where and who these lawyers are affiliated with, $700/hour may represent a bargain.
Keep in mind that none of greater Boston's six law schools have a sticker price under $250,000 at the moment and the primary loans people take out to finance law school (GradPLUS) have an interest rate of over 8% this fall. Law is brutally expensive for all involved, including the lawyers.
That's what happens when you lose a civil rights suit
You gotta pay.
Frank Baker's 10,000 Paid For Lunch
And a couple of trips to the FedEx Office Center.
Passive voice in the lede….
Reimbursed by whom?
Also:
Who were their clients?
What does the engagement letter say?
Sorry
They want the city of Boston to pay them.
You can see the final list of plaintiffs here. The original complaint, filed in state court, had a much smaller list of plaintiffs, mostly from South Boston (scroll down in that document, past the notice of removal, to see the plaintiffs).
Note that one of the groups listed in the amended complaint filed a motion to be removed from the case, alleging that the woman who signed them up for the case was no longer the group's president and had no right to do so.
As for what the engagement letter said, I don't know, that sort of thing isn't usually posted on the docket.