One billable hour: $650. Attorneys fees: $2,008,175. Peering into the DA's e-mail: priceless.

In an April 1 filing, Harris County is contesting a $4.4 million legal bill from plaintiff's attorney Lloyd E. Kelley. The bill comes in the recently settled civil-rights suit that resulted in the resignation of Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal. Back on March 17 in Ibarra, et al. v. Harris County, et al., Kelley  filed an application for $4.4 million in fees. Harris County balked, arguing in its reply to Kelley’s fee application that Kelley's hour rates and number of hours billed, among other things, were unreasonable and not properly documented. Kelley says in his application that he billed 3,089.5 hours in the case at $650 an hour, resulting in a total of $2,008,175. His attorneys and legal assistants billed several hundred additional hours at varying rates, bringing the total up to $2,220,437.50. Kelley seeks a "lodestar multiplier" of two, which brings his requested fee amount up to $4,440,875. "In this case," Kelley states in his application for attorneys' fees, "based on the significant costs and risks involved in the litigation, as well as the complexities of the case and the size of the settlement, a lodestar multiplier between 1.5 and 2.0 is appropriate." Kelley argues that such a multiplier is warranted because: he had to fight 10 to 15 attorneys employed by Harris County to defend the case; he endured the difficulty of taking on a case involving "almost all the leaders of Harris County"; he handled the extensive nature of the litigation; and he achieved an "extraordinary result." In an April 1 response to Kelley's fee motion, Edward J. Hennessy, a partner in Hennessy Gardner & Barth and an attorney for the county, says that Kelley should receive $275 an hour but no more than $350 an hour. Hennessy also argues that no multiplier is warranted or legally valid, because the underlying case has been settled. "[T]he Plaintiffs have not cited a single case that provides sanctions as a basis for enhancing a 'lodestar' fee," Hennessy states. U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt will decide how much in fees to award Kelley.
-- Jonathan Fox