A California federal judge has called one lawyer’s hourly rate “patently unreasonable” in a case involving Google’s voice-activated assistant.
U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the Northern District of California approved more than $22.6 million in legal fees in the $68 million privacy settlement but refused to accept a $3,000 rate for David Scott of plaintiffs law firm Scott+Scott, according to a story from Reuters.
“It is not unusual for named partners to charge more than other partners,” Freeman wrote in the Tuesday order. “And the court is cognizant that rates increase year to year. But not to $3,000 an hour.”
Freeman reduced Scott’s fee to $1,600 per hour to calculate the overall class action fee award, Reuters reports.
Reuters also reports that a $3,000 hourly rate is not entirely unusual. The publication has discovered some lawyers at Susman Godfrey charge rates as high as $4,000, while others at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Milbank charge more than $3,000.
“Lawyers operate in a market, and for better or worse, $3,000 per hour is now very much market rate for top tier partners at large firms,” Adam Levitin, a bankruptcy professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, told Reuters.
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