IV. Reasonableness of La Raza's Requested Compensation
La Raza requests $90,731.372 as follows:
Attorney Fees | ||
Mark Savage |
129.6 hours x $390.00 |
= $50,544.00 |
Jenny Huang |
52.1 hours x $295.00 |
= $15,369.50 |
Law Clerk |
||
Elisa Laird |
37.9 hours x $130.00 |
= $ 4,927.00 |
Subtotal $70,840.50 | ||
Attorney Expenses |
$ 2,015.87 | |
Expert Witness Fees and Expenses | ||
Tom Hargadon |
71.50 hours x $250.00 |
$17,875.00 |
Total $90,731.37 | ||
La Raza asserts that its 223.90 hours of work were reasonable over the course of a 20-month proceeding, and during which La Raza filed several formal documents and analysis.
A. Hours Claimed
We find that the hours claimed for La Raza's attorneys and law clerk are reasonable. We reduce Hargadon's compensable hours because his testimony was vague and did not provide specific analysis. For example, the testimony proposes that customers and their broadband providers enter into contracts for service to overcome problems presented by existing state and federal law, but it does not explain what those legal barriers might be and how a contractual arrangement would solve them. The testimony proposes that basic service for business include broadband because "there is little distinction between residential and business in digital services," an observation that is vague and seemingly irrelevant to scope of the proceeding. A substantial portion of the testimony addresses the cost of ubiquitous broadband access by assuming those costs rather than analyzing what they might be or reporting what they are. Hargadon's testimony touched on many complex issues implicated by this rulemaking but offered no comprehensive, feasible proposals to address these issues. Moreover, we cannot agree with La Raza that more than 70 hours of billed time is reasonable to draft less than seven pages on matters of substance. For these reasons, we find that 20 hours is a reasonable estimate of the time spent on topics which were useful to the Commission.
As stated previously, we will award compensation for the reasonable hours of attorneys and experts but apply 50% reduction in recognition that the Commission did not adopt La Raza's substantive recommendations.
B. Hourly Rates
La Raza provided an analysis of San Francisco attorney fees to justify its proposed rates. It sets the rates by comparing the rates of large San Francisco area law firms and then (apparently) adding a premium for "contingency work" and adding a multiplier.3 La Raza's expert, Richard Pearl, argues that firms typically require premium rates for contingency work because they assume a risk that they will not recover their fees.
We do not adopt La Raza's proposed fee levels because they are significantly higher than the rates for other attorneys we have compensated in Commission proceedings. Those fees are set according to our assessment of market rates. Specifically, Michel Florio of TURN has more than 20 years of experience in utility law and received $315 an hour for the period 2000-01 (D.01-11-014). Robert Finkelstein, who has slightly more experience than Savage, received $280 in 2000, $310 in 2001, and $340 in 2002. Like Savage, Christopher Hilen was admitted to the California state bar in 1989. Hilen received $285 for work in 2001. Accordingly, we adopt an hourly fee for Savage of $285 for 2001 and increase it to $300 for 2002.
Setting the fee for Jenny Huang is somewhat more complicated. Huang was not licensed to practice law in California during the period in question. In a supplemental filing, La Raza clarified that she provided legal research under the supervision of an attorney in this proceeding. Under the circumstances, Huang's market rate would not be the same as the rate for a member of the California bar conducting independent legal representation. Rather, her work is comparable to that of an accomplished law clerk. We add a premium to the legal fees we adopt here for law clerks to recognize Huang's legal practice experience in another state. This approach is consistent with D.02-11-024, where we adopted a rate of $125 an hour in 2001 for a highly experienced paralegal who also had a juris doctorate but was not a member of the California bar. We adopt that rate for Huang today for 2001 and increase it to $135 an hour for 2002.
For Laird, we adopt a rate of $85 an hour, which is the rate we awarded to law clerks in D.03-01-075. Consistent with past practice, we do not discount the rate for time spent by law clerks on intervenor compensation requests.
La Raza claims $250 an hour for the work of Hargadon, which is consistent with our past awards to Hargadon and we will adopt it.
2 La Raza also provided an alternative request that reduced the hours worked on the intervenor compensation request by 50% and made the rate for law clerks consistent with Commission decisions setting rates for that category of professional. Applying these policies reduces the total request to $80,514.47. 3 Adding on a premium for contingency work is not consistent with our administration of the intervenor compensation program. While under certain circumstances we will use a multiplier, see Communications TeleSystems International, 85 CPUC 2d 552, 558-561 (1999)(D.99-04-023), La Raza has not demonstrated that those circumstances are present here.
