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DRAFT FOR ATTORNEY REVIEW — NOT FINAL

Quigley v. Winter, 598 F.3d 938 (2010)

Citation
Quigley v. Winter, 598 F.3d 938 (2010)
Parent Document
Quigley v. Winter, 598 F.3d 938 (2010)
Effective Date
2010-03-16

Other Sections in This Document (232)

Full Text

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While we agree with Quigley that the district court abused its discretion in significantly reducing Quigley’s requested attorney fees without conducting the proper analysis and in basing its decision on unsupported considerations, we do agree with the district court’s determination that Quigley’s attorney fees request was excessive. We have reviewed in depth Quigley’s supporting documentation. According to one of Quigley’s attorneys, Scott Moore, the preparation of Quigley’s case involved 437.7 hours of work performed by six attorneys and two paralegals from Baird Holm, LLP, an Omaha, Nebraska, law firm. These lawyers and their firm are deservedly highly respected, and their success in this case is commendable. Although we do not question the ethics or abilities of these attorneys, in our view, the complexity of the issues in this case simply did not warrant the requested amount of “lawyering.” We also conclude there was a significant amount of duplicative work, in part caused by transitions in the attorneys of record. For those reasons, we determine it is reasonable and appropriate to reduce the hours expended by each of the attorneys and paralegals by one-third, while leaving their hourly rates undis*959turbed. See Hensley, 461 U.S. at 434, 103 S.Ct. 1933 (“Cases may be overstaffed.”).