Monday, November 18, 2019

$33K "very reasonable amount for an appeal"

In this unpub'd decision from 2/7 today, there's a fight about whether a fees declaration for appellate counsel was sufficient, to which Justice Segal explains:
True, the declaration of Wang’s appellate counsel did not include any detail. But the significance of detailed time entries is reduced for appellate work—there are only four or five kinds of tasks an appellate lawyer generally records on a time sheet: review the record, read the briefs, conduct research for the briefs, write the briefs, and argue the briefs. And $33,000 is a very reasonable amount for an appeal, particularly where the attorney is representing the appellant and files an opening and reply brief, appears for oral argument, and obtains a reversal. It is hard to imagine an appeal like Durack I reasonably could have been done for much less than that.