It can work both ways. I recently wrote about a case in Illinois where a guy sued Sears for overcharging him $3.10 in sales tax. The judge awarded him the $3.10 plus over $175,000 in "reasonable" attorney fees. An appeals court ended up tossing the attorney fee award, but still it's a good illustration of how these things work.
Looking at the Axanar case, Loeb & Loeb have three attorneys already assigned to this. The two partners might bill something like $500 per hour. Toss in a couple of paralegals and you're talking a lot of money just for time, to say nothing of expenses. Law firms actually make up a lot of their billing charging clients for photocopies (yes, even in the digital age).
I used to audit law firms for an insurance carrier.
$500/hour is pretty standard for specialty practice in a large city. .25 hour billing increments are standard. Hence, for example, if it took 2 minutes to review an email, a lawyer could technically charge .25 hour, or $125 at this rate. Fortunately for most clients, email reviews tend to be bundled and they also tend to be paralegal work, unless it's something important which needs to be moved up the chain.
For a paralegal billing at $100/hour, it's possible a review of 7 emails would take 14 minutes. Billing at bundle out at .25 hour still makes it a $25 bill.
Now multiply that by however many days a case is open, however many communications occur, etc.
Standard legal billings include hourly rates for:
- Summonses, complaints, answers, and other pleadings.
- Email and snail mail reviews.
- Phone calls, both sent and received.
- Motions (can be drafted by a less expensive paralegal but need to be reviewed and signed off by someone admitted to the Bar. In high-powered firms, paralegals can readily run $100 - $200/hour).
- Motion appearances (not every jurisdiction requires these as a matter of course; I am unsure what Calif. or Federal practice currently require). These must be done by an attorney admitted to the jurisdiction the motion is being made in, although attorneys can be admitted pro hac vice (for the duration of a case and no longer) upon motion to a judge.
- File reviews when a matter first comes in and any time someone other than the handling attorney has to do something at least moderately-sized (e. g. appear in court, even if it's only for an hour). Larger files, of course, take more time to review. A case might temporarily pass between attorneys in a firm because someone is going on vacation or they get sick or the like.
- Depositions, even if the attorney only sits in and does not ask any questions.
- Settlement conferences, whether in person or via telephone or email.
- Pretrial appearances, even if the day goes by and the judge never calls the case because it's 8 PM and everybody wants to go home already (firms might waive this or might send a junior lawyer with other things to do if it's not expected that the matter will be called. If a lawyer is waiting for your case, but is spending his/her time wisely and is calling opposing counsel on another claim, then the billing time can only be for one of those two matters, even though technically the lawyer is multitasking. Usually the bill goes to the case where the phone call is made).
- Trial.
- Appeal.
And those are just hourly costs. Billable expenses include but are not limited to:
- Travel (mileage, hotel room if necessary, tolls or public transportation, that sort of thing).
- Postage.
- Long distance phone bills.
- Photocopying as @oswriter noted.
A case open for 30 days, if it is fairly active, costs can easily hit 5 figures. And I am talking about reasonable costs here, not firms unethically overcharging or anything. Legitimate fees can be a lot like buying a used car.
Every month until resolution.
both of you!
