The Cost of Law Practice

Ted Frank points out an instance where Judge Richard Posner clearly had no idea what he was talking about. The gist is that Posner disallowed any award of legal fees to a law firm where a partner and junior associate spent some 13 hours on a 4-page motion. Since Posner has an encyclopedic understanding of American law, and since he himself works at superhuman speed, he apparently doesn't understand that the typical junior associate might need to spend several hours researching and attempting to understand the relevant caselaw on a given question (which may include looking at dozens of cases that ultimately turn out to be irrelevant or superfluous), in addition to consulting with the partner and the client, reading up on the Seventh Circuit rules, editing the motion, etc.