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Power to the Paralegals! Just Be Sure to Keep Track of Your Time?.

By Eric L. Lipman

In an interesting opinion issued this morning, the United States Supreme Court reversed a lower court's ruling that paralegal costs were not recoverable as ?expenses? under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Transportation?s Board of Contract Appeals denied in part the fee petition of Richlin Security Service Company, a government contractor that had earlier prevailed in litigation against the agency under the Service Contract Act. On appeal, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's conclusion. The panel reasoned that the EAJA authorizes the recovery of the fees of attorneys, experts and agents ? but not paralegals.

Reversing that decision, and siding with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on this issue, the High Court reasoned: ?Since §504(b)(1)(A) awards fees at 'prevailing market rates,' a straightforward reading of the statute leads to the conclusion that Richlin was entitled to recover fees for the paralegal services it purchased at the market rate for such services.?

Likewise noteworthy, was Justice Alito's pointed rejoinder to the agency's claim that any right to recover paralegal fees under EAJA must be read narrowly, in light of the canon urging a strict construction of waivers of sovereign immunity. In a passage that is certain to be cited often by the Contract Bar, Justice Alito wrote: ?The sovereign immunity canon is just that ? a canon of construction. It is a tool for interpreting the law, and we have never held that it displaces the other traditional tools of statutory construction.... There is no need for us to resort to the sovereign immunity canon because there is no ambiguity left for us to construe.?

The Court's complete (and nearly unanimous) opinion is accessible here.

Full post as published by Within the Scope on June 02, 2008 (boomark / email).