We have been evaluating attorney fees for more than 20 years.  LFA’s director, Joe Studer, started evaluating attorney fees in 2001, working with Bruce Meckler and the legal fee practice group at Meckler Bulger Tilson, to assess the reasonableness and necessity of attorneys’ fees.  The legal fee practice group, which eventually became a subsidiary of Cozen O’Connor, handled thousands of different engagements involving billions of dollars in legal fees, in a broad range of litigation and non-litigation matters including bankruptcy, environmental, asbestos, commercial contract, civil rights, white collar crime, securities, product liability, professional liability, employment, mass tort, directors’ and officers’ liability, qui tam, patent, trademark and copyright.  In March 2019, Joe took the legal fee practice group and formed Legal Fee Analytics as a stand-alone company that focuses solely upon attorney fee issues.  Our practical experience, our history and our capabilities make us uniquely qualified to assist clients with their attorney fee issues.

It is our mission to help our clients resolve any issues they have with attorney fees.  We are often asked to determine whether a certain set of attorney fees are reasonable and necessary, and we provide those answers, using an objective, quantifiable analysis that makes it easy to understand how fees are being spent, and whether those efforts are reasonable and necessary.

Ultimately, we want to be sure that we are providing value to the client.  So before taking any assignment, we first discuss the matter with the potential client, conduct a preliminary evaluation of the information and materials they can provide (at no cost), and then provide the potential client with our initial assessment about whether we can assist them, and how we might be able to assist them.

Our methodology is highly quantitative and highly contextual.  For context, we examine available materials to learn about and understand the underlying matter, to understand the experience and skill of the attorneys involved, and to understand the relevant market of attorneys available to handle the matter.  That often includes an analysis of the underlying work product and pleadings; analysis of witness statements, deposition transcripts, or conversations with counsel; analysis of market data; and analysis of other publicly available information.

On the quantitative side, we review the fees at issue from the weeds up.  Typically, we perform a line-by-line analysis of the fees, identifying the work effort related to each line item.  This line-by-line analysis allows us to identify who did what, and how many hours and fees were associated with the different work efforts.  This allows us to assess whether the work effort was reasonable, and also allows us to perform whatever allocations are appropriate for the work effort.

In the end, our opinions and advice are based upon a contextual understanding of the background facts, a firm grasp of the applicable rules of professional responsibility, other applicable precedents bearing on the reasonableness of attorneys’ fees, and the custom and practice within the legal community.  All supported by quantifiable data.