A California appellate court has turned down a request from a lawyer seeking $308,000 in attorney fees for his initial representation of the family of a man shot and killed by Los Angeles County sheriff's department officers in 2016.

The Second District Court of Appeal on Wednesday affirmed a trial court decision granting Los Angeles attorney Michael Traylor just $17,325 from the $7 million settlement that lawyers who took over the case from him reached to settle the wrongful death and civil rights claims. The court found that Traylor hadn't handed over his files to the new lawyers and had submitted three separate accounts of time spent on the matter. In publishing the decision, the court noted it wanted to highlight that "contemporaneous time records" are the best evidence of an attorney's work.

"They are not indispensable, but they eclipse other proofs," wrote Second District Justice Shepard Wiley Jr. "Lawyers know this better than anyone. They might heed what they know."