Publish time: Wed Sep 08 00:00:00 CST 2010
In the morning of Sept. 7, 2010, a lecture on “Standards for Awards of Attorneys’ Fees in U.S.” was successfully held in the No. 1 Arbitration Hall of BAC. The contents of the lecture by Mr. Thomas J. Klitgaard, Senior Partner of Dillingham & Murphy (USA), Part-time Professor of the School of Law, University of San Francisco and BAC’s arbitrator and mediator, are lively and in details, offering a feast of lawyer’s practices to every participant.
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| Lecturer Mr. Klitgaard | Mr. Klitgaard is exchanging opinions with the participants |
Mr. Klitgaard took his case of claiming for lawyer fee at the Ninth Circuit of US Federal Court as the example to explain in details the factors to be considered when claiming for lawyer fee in the litigation of US courts, including right of attribution, burden of proof, calculation of the “lodestar”, reasonable rate, and relationship with lawsuit winning percentage.
In the USA, a party may, after the completion of the original litigation, request the other party to shoulder the lawyer fee in accordance with the court decision. US Federal Court has detailed standards on dealing with the claims for lawyer fee, such as the plaintiff shall shoulder the strict burden of proof and the basis for the calculation of the reasonable rate shall be the average of local lawyers. The “lodestar” is a method for the exact calculation of lawyers’ working hours. Mr. Klitgaard explained profound ideas in plain terms and continuously providing all kinds of examples to help the participants understand the contents of the lecture.
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| The participants are listening to the lecture attentively | Secretary General WANG Hongsong is discussing with Mr. Klitgaard |
After the lecture, the participants enthusiastically made exchanges with Mr. Klitgaard on the problems they encountered in their practices and discussed the similarities and dissimilarities between the standards in China and the USA on dealing with the claims for lawyer fee. All participants felt that they benefited a great deal from the lecture.