Attorney’s Fee Awards

Attorney's fee awards can be frustrating. The reason being is the award is based on a mini-bench-trial after the trial aimed at determining reasonableness of the attorney’s fees. An expert, i.e., another lawyer, is required to opine as to the reasonableness of the attorney’s fees. Fees are not just rubberstamped and banking on recovering 100% of the attorney’s fees incurred is probably not realistic. In fact, you should not “bank” on that mindset when determining whether to settle the attorney’s fees or the dispute. A recent case, Kovar Law Group, PLLC v. Jordan, 49 Fla.L.Weekly D431a (Fla. 2d DCA 2024), touches...

24 March

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Discoverability of Opposing Party’s Attorney’s Fees Records

Posted by David Adelstein

in Evidence, Trial Perspectives

Interesting new Florida Supreme Court case regarding the discoverability of an opposing party’s fees records in a dispute regarding the reasonableness of your fees. For instance, say you are entitled to your reasonable attorney’s fees after prevailing in a dispute. The parties are entitled to an evidentiary fee hearing to determine the reasonableness of your fees—to determine the reasonable hourly rate and number of expended hours. Oftentimes, the party that prevailed serves discovery on the opposing / contesting party to discover their attorney’s fees records. The opposing / contesting party typically objects to this discovery as being irrelevant. But, not so fast...