The Trend:

Crafting an attorney fee petition is as much an art as it is a science. Documenting the hours and resources spent working on a matter is important, but demonstrating to the court that all that time and effort was necessary and, ultimately, worth it is just as, if not more, crucial.

Perfecting that art is becoming increasingly important as we seem to be seeing more and more fee requests being shot down in flames for overshooting their mark. Often, those petitions are being rejected because the court decides the matter was overstaffed, overpriced, underwhelming or some combination of the three.