This is a definite "I've got some good news and some bad news for you" type of case, at least for the underlying lawyer, Perry Smith.
The good news is that he represents the plaintiff and wins the underlying lawsuit, as well as gets awarded attorney's fees. No small win, either. It's a FEHA case, and plaintiff obtains a judgment at trial for a little over $130,000. The attorney fee award is even bigger: over $680,000 in fees, at a relatively hefty hourly rate (for Smith) of $750/hour. That's definitely good news.
The bad news, however, is that Smith wanted even more in attorney's fees: over $2 million, including a 1.75 multiplier. But not only did the trial court refuse to give the requested multiplier, but it also reduced the fee award on a variety of grounds. The largest of which was a 40% reduction based on Smith's alleged repeated "incivility" to both opposing counsel as well as the court.
Not only does the Court of Appeal affirm, but it publishes an opinion that quotes in excruciating detail various instances of incivility by Smith. So not only does the attorney get hit (fairly substantially) in the pocketbook, but is hit reputationally as well.
The opinion is 40 pages. It recounts stuff that, in my experience, is not unprecedented, but nonetheless clearly reflects an attorney who's way overly aggressive in both tone and content. Not only with opposing counsel in emails, but -- particularly cringeworthy -- to both the trial court and the Court of Appeal, orally as well as in writing.
I get that you sometimes hate opposing counsel. Sometimes perhaps understandably so.
But you have to tamp that stuff down. Or at least not go way overboard.
Otherwise you risk something like this.
Plaintiff's counsel now appears to have his own firm, rather than the firm listed on the caption, and the new firm's website lists a lot of positive things that people have allegedly said about Mr. Smith. I suspect, though, that nothing from today's opinion will be included on that same website anytime soon.
