{"id":165307,"date":"2026-10-19T14:24:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T22:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/19\/judge-says-a-3000-hourly-rate-is-patently-unreasonable\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T14:24:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T22:24:47","slug":"judge-says-a-3000-hourly-rate-is-patently-unreasonable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/10\/19\/judge-says-a-3000-hourly-rate-is-patently-unreasonable\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Says A $3,000 Hourly Rate Is \u2018Patently Unreasonable\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is not unusual for named partners to charge more than other partners. And the court is cognizant that rates increase year to year. But not to $3,000 an hour<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u2014 U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman, explaining<\/a> why she reduced plaintiffs\u2019 lawyer David Scott\u2019s proposed $3,000 hourly rate to $1,600 as part of a fee award in a Google privacy settlement. Freeman called the proposed rate \u201cpatently unreasonable,\u201d Reuters reported<\/a>. Hourly rates at large U.S. firms rose an average of 7% in 2025, and some Biglaw partners now charge more than $3,000 an hour, with rates reaching $4,000.<\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Staci Zaretsky<\/a> is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky<\/a>, X\/Twitter<\/a>, and Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The post Judge Says A $3,000 Hourly Rate Is \u2018Patently Unreasonable\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Ed. note<\/u>: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is not unusual for named partners to charge more than other partners. And the court is cognizant that rates increase year to year. But not to $3,000 an hour<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u2014 U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman, explaining<\/a> why she reduced plaintiffs\u2019 lawyer David Scott\u2019s proposed $3,000 hourly rate to $1,600 as part of a fee award in a Google privacy settlement. Freeman called the proposed rate \u201cpatently unreasonable,\u201d Reuters reported<\/a>. Hourly rates at large U.S. firms rose an average of 7% in 2025, and some Biglaw partners now charge more than $3,000 an hour, with rates reaching $4,000.<\/strong><\/em><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Staci Zaretsky<\/a> is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email<\/a> her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky<\/a>, X\/Twitter<\/a>, and Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature,\u00a0Quote of the Day. It is not unusual for named partners to charge more than other partners. And the court is cognizant that rates increase year to year. But not to $3,000 an hour. \u2014 U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman, explaining why she reduced plaintiffs\u2019 lawyer David Scott\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":165274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}