Brilliant!
I’m sure we’ve all thought to ourselves, at one time or another, “I should be paid more for this work.” The lawyers for the plaintiffs in City of Riverside v. Rivera certainly have. After winning their case against the city, the plaintiffs asked for attorneys’ fees and “a multiplier . . . to reflect the contingent nature of their success and the high quality of their attorneys’ efforts.”
This is awesome. I’m just imagining the lawyers celebrating in a bar after the verdict:
“We won! We actually won!”
“Hell yeah! We beat the pants off them. That brief was spectacular.”
“And your closing argument–just brilliant! Hey bartender, another round!”
“Damn, we’re good.”
“Damn straight, we are. In fact, we’re so good, they should pay us double!”
“Triple!”
“Wait, I have an idea. Gimme a pencil. [mumbling] Multiplier… high quality efforts… contingent nature of success…”
In the end, the court rejected their claim. Twice, actually. But hey, it was worth a shot.