The Court recognized Plaintiff’s former attorneys, Swick & Shapiro, P.C., billed at reasonable rates for the nature of the case and skill required in Smith v. Loundon County Pub. Sch., 2017 WL 176510 (E.D. Va. Jan. 17, 2017). However, the former attorneys failed to reduce their fees in relation to Plaintiff only prevailing on one of her three claims. The Court found the attorneys reduced arbitrary amounts from their billing simply claiming “lost claim time” with no further explanation and which only amounted to ~10 and ~22% of their total billing, respectively. In addition, the remaining time entries contained block billed and various vague entries, prompting the Court, for those reasons, to reduce the overall billed time by Swick & Shapiro by 50%. The Court next recognized the firm’s work in the case provided assistance in Plaintiff’s current counsel’s preparation, but ultimately, since Plaintiff only prevailed on one claim, it required “a substantial reduction for ‘lack of litigation success,’” and the Court took an additional 2/3 reduction. Finally, an attorney who billed for Plaintiff’s representation before the EEOC received nothing of her requested $8,400 since the Court found it troublesome the attorney billed nearly all time to the nearest hour and, based on the time sheets, it was impossible to determine how much time billed was actually expended on the one successful claim.
