In December 2009, Congress repealed the prohibition on legal services lawyers claiming and collecting attorneys’ fees. Now fees can be sought under both federal and state law, in cases ranging from individual claims under consumer protection and housing statutes to due process challenges under the Constitution. This training is an introduction to seeking attorneys’ fees for public interest attorneys who have limited experience with fee petitions. The training will include: strategic use of attorneys’ fees requests, conversations with the client, demand letters, co-counsel agreements, drafting complaints, time keeping, settlement negotiations, and tips for what to include in a fee petition, as well as an introduction to rates, prevailing party law, common objections, and sovereign immunity.
The panelists are:
Charles Delbaum, staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. He is co-editor of NCLC’s Consumer Class Actions manual and a contributing author to NCLC’s Fair Debt, Fair Credit and Credit Discrimination manuals. He was previously the Director of Litigation and Advocacy at New Orleans Legal Assistance.
Barry Litt, partner in Litt, Estuar, Harrison and Kitson – a civil rights/public-interest litigation firm in Los Angeles. He has obtained numerous seven and eight figure verdicts or settlements. He speaks and writes extensively on obtaining statutory attorneys’ fees and class fund attorneys’ fees, and has engaged in training on maximizing attorneys’ fee awards for various nonprofit law firms.
Shelley White, Director of Litigation at New Haven Legal Assistance Association. Her job includes supervision of all federal and state fee applications. She also is counsel in numerous cases and appeals in federal and state courts. She helped develop the Affirmative Litigation training for the Center for Legal Education.
The webinar is moderated by Rochelle Bobroff, Directing Attorney of the Federal Rights Project at NSCLC, and Hannah Lieberman, consultant to NLADA’s Program Enhancement Committee.
Download and listen to the webinar (Windows Media 94.4MB) Includes audio and visual materials presented during the webinar. Please note: This is a large file saved in Windows Media format.
Download:
Agenda | Recording | Bobroff PowerPoint | Lieberman PowerPoint | Delbaum PowerPoint | Litt PowerPoint | White PowerPoint | Sample documents, vol. 1 | Sample documents, vol. 2 | Sample documents, vol. 3
