Full opinion text
ORDER O’KELLEY, District Judge. In keeping with the conditions set forth in the class notice, the court conducted an evidentiary hearing on November 19, 1979, to air objections to the settlement agreements, fee applications, and the interclass sharing proposal. By order of March 7, 1980, the court approved the settlement agreements, with the unanimous consent of all the parties, as fair, adequate, and reasonable. Final judgments were then entered on March 19, 1980, dismissing with prejudice the complaints as to all defendants not previously dismissed — except for the National Broiler Marketing Association; which was dismissed without prejudice— and the counterclaims filed by certain defendants, but the court retained jurisdiction over No. C74-2454A to administer the settlements. The entry of judgment signaled a sonorous end to a protracted, contentious litigation; however, it may be that the hostilities between the plaintiffs and the defendants will pale in comparison with the disputes yet to be resolved. All told, the settlement agreements created a fund of approximately 35 million dollars. The next and final step in terminating this litigation is to distribute the settlement fund among the more than 2,700 claimants. The first order of business, though, is to pass upon the fee applications submitted by the plaintiffs’ counsel, who claim a portion of this fund for out-of-pocket costs and as fees for their role in negotiating these settlements. These applications, 15 in number, contain requests for fees amounting to over $2,900,000.00, not including any multiplier, and costs of $199,-113.03. These petitions are not based upon any pre-existing arrangements between the represented members of the plaintiff class and their attorneys or upon any statutory authority for awarding attorneys’ fees, since the pertinent statute, section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C.A. § 15, does not apply to cases such as this one where the parties stipulated to the dismissal of the suit rather than litigated to a judgment. Their source is instead an independent outgrowth of the court’s equitable power to prevent unjust enrichment of members of a class who derive benefits from a common fund created by the labors of others by spreading the costs of the litigation among the fund’s beneficiaries. Under the principle recognized in Trustees v. Greenough, 105 U.S. 527, 26 L.Ed. 1157 (1881), and later refined in Sprague v. Ticonic National Bank, 307 U.S. 161, 59 S.Ct. 777, 83 L.Ed. 1184 (1939), an attorney of the prevailing party may apply for a portion of the fund as compensation for his successful efforts above and beyond reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses, a notable exception to the American practice of denying to the prevailing party recovery of his attorney’s fees as costs or otherwise. See Boeing Co. v. Van Gemert, 444 U.S. 472, 100 S.Ct. 745, 62 L.Ed.2d 676 (1980); Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society, 421 U.S. 240, 95 S.Ct. 1612, 44 L.Ed.2d 141 (1975); Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U.S. 375, 391-92, 90 S.Ct. 616, 625, 24 L.Ed.2d 593 (1970). But, notwithstanding the universal acceptance of the equitable fund doctrine as a basis for awarding attorney’s fees to the successful party, the courts have experienced considerable problems in accommodating the competing interests involved. On one hand, the court is anxious to encourage private parties represented by private counsel to undertake litigation for the common good as private attorney generals in the hope that the threat of litigation will deter further violations of the law and that the successful prosecution of antitrust suits will disgorge antitrust violators of their illegal profits and return them to the victims. By adopting a policy of rewarding counsel for their efforts, the court can make the difficult decision to undertake an antitrust suit more palatable, thus ensuring that the plaintiff’s antitrust bar will contain members with the skill and experience necessary to wrestle with these usually complex antitrust suits. At the same time, however, the court’s desire to provide counsel with an incentive to prosecute antitrust suits must be tempered by its responsibility to jealously guard the rights of the beneficiaries of the fund, whose legal injuries prompted the litigation and whose redress is the principal reason for the creation of the fund. Though the common fund doctrine may be predicated upon an equitable principle disfavoring unjust enrichment and encouraging the recapture of any windfall to the class, the recovery due the plaintiffs here is not a windfall in the sense that it represents undeserved gain. Upon the premise that the plaintiffs’ allegations of trade restraint and artificially high prices are true, the claimants incurred some injury for every .broiler purchased from the defendants during the NBMA’s existence; yet due to the large number of claims, each claimant will recover only a fraction of the excess prices paid. Therefore, the court cannot discharge its responsibility to protect the unrepresented, absent class members unless the plaintiffs’ litigation costs are allocated in some reasonable proportion to the benefits conferred upon the class. While the court has wrestled with several difficult legal issues during the course of this litigation, perhaps none was more complicated than the valuation of the legal services rendered on behalf of the plaintiff class. The approximation of a reasonable value is a proper exercise of the court’s discretion, but to say that the award of reasonable fees is committed to the sound discretion of the court is only to state the crux of the problem. Little in the way of guidance is offered the court in evaluating these applications to assure that the attorneys are not shortchanged or that the class is overcharged. Indeed, given the nature of the court’s task, no method could be devised that would permit the court to determine with mathematical precision the monetary value of each attorney’s contribution to the successful settlement of these cases. What is reasonable depends first upon the outcome. If the plaintiffs’ counsel succeed in negotiating a favorable settlement for the class, then their fee award should reflect this fact, but a large settlement fund can stand as a monument to the outstanding prestige, skill, and vigor of the class’ counsel, or may simply reflect the number of possible claimants or the broad scope of the defendants’ activities, with only a modest contribution by counsel. To compensate for the lack of a tested formula for computing the market value of these services, the courts have fallen back on a medley of variables designed to isolate the contribution by the plaintiffs’ counsel from the impact of these other factors, to appraise its value, and to distribute these costs fairly among the beneficiaries. E.g., City of Detroit v. Grinnell Corp., 560 F.2d 1093 (2d Cir.1977); Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 540 F.2d 102 (3d Cir.1976), and 487 F.2d 161 (3d Cir.1973); Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (5th Cir.1974); In re Master Key Litigation, 1978-1 Trade Cas. (CCH) ¶ 61,887 (D.Conn. 1977); In re King Resources Co. Securities Litigation, 420 F.Supp. 610 (D.Colo.1976); In re Coordinated Pretrial Proceedings in Antibiotic Antitrust Actions, 410 F.Supp. 680 (D.Minn.1975). See also Code of Professional Responsibility Canon 2, EC 2-17, EC 2-18, Disciplinary Rules DR 2-106(B). The clear tendency has been to analyze fee applications more critically to ensure that the class is charged with only those services benefiting it by eliminating, and thereby discouraging, duplication and wasted effort. Though basically the same standard is used nationwide, the results have differed, with some courts using a sharper scalpel than others. Compare In re Armored Car Antitrust Litigation, 472 F.Supp. 1357 (N.D.Ga. 1979) with Arenson v. Board of Trade of Chicago, 372 F.Supp. 1349 (N.D.Ill.1974). For several reasons the court does not relish the task of passing on these applications. To begin with, the court is pleased with the results and with counsel’s performance on behalf of the class. As are most individuals who have followed the course of this litigation since its inception six years ago, the court is impressed by the favorable terms upon which the plaintiffs agreed to dismiss their suits. Surely a good deal of the credit for this result goes to counsel who by their unwavering persistence and imaginative strategy were able to wear down the defendants’ opposition until they capitulated to the plaintiffs’ demands. In keeping with its duty to absent class members, however, the court must measure the full extent of each applicant’s commitment to this litigation, awarding fees for only that time spent for the benefit of the class. A principal criticism of awarding fees under the equitable fund doctrine has been that attorneys receive a windfall at the expense of the injured class members, that the courts, mesmerized by the extraordinary success on what was believed to be a weak claim, have failed to show solicitude for the class members’ interests. If in response to this criticism the courts have demonstrated a propensity to scrutinize fee applications more carefully, the experience has not made the task easier each time it arises. Although the applicants have supplied reams of paper documenting the hours spent on these cases, and the court has been overseeing this litigation since its commencement, the court still finds it exceedingly difficult, without painstakingly examining each allocation of attorney time down to the fraction of an hour, to pinpoint instances when less attorney time would have accomplished the same result or where two or more applicants duplicated one anothers’ labors. Obviously, in any case where the parties settle before trial, some time spent researching issues of liability and preserving the testimony of witnesses will represent wasted effort; this is especially true here since these cases were settled when discovery on the class certification issue was just beginning to wind down. But the court does not believe that to discharge its responsibility to class members it must meticulously pour through each application, examining each entry and comparing it with time spent by other attorneys in the case — in essence, demanding that the applicant justify each and every use of his time. All that is required is for the court to estimate a reasonable value for the services performed by each applicant, under all the circumstances. See Piambino v. Bailey, 610 F.2d 1306, 1328 (5th Cir.1980). As a likely starting point the court chooses to first compute the fee the applicant might reasonably charge any client for this type of work and then adjust this amount to reflect the peculiar circumstances of this litigation, an approach perhaps first adopted in Lindy Bros. Builders, Inc. v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp., 487 F.2d 161 (3d Cir.1973), but since used by a number of courts in a wide variety of cases. See Matter of First Colonial Corp. of America, 544 F.2d 1291 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 431 U.S. 904, 97 S.Ct. 1696, 52 L.Ed.2d 388 (1977); the cases listed in Newberg on Class Actions §§ 6922, 6924 (1977 & Supp.). This initial emphasis on what the attorney might customarily bill in a noneontingent case replaces the traditional approach of assessing the applicant’s contribution in terms of a flat percentage of the settlement fund. Because the fee would be paid in part by absent class members, who in effect had been represented on a contingent basis, the courts felt that a percentage of the recovery would reflect more accurately the value of the attorneys’ services to the class as a whole. This court feels, like the court in Lindy Bros, obviously did, that only by tying the ultimate fee to the actual hours worked in creating this benefit for the class can it ensure that the result will be fair and thus escape the criticism heaped upon courts for awarding what are believed to be exorbitant attorneys’ fees. The court readily admits that undue emphasis on the time devoted to this litigation is open to charges of being artificial and arbitrary; a large number of hours could mean any number of things, including that the litigation raised complex issues calling for an unusually high number of man-hours or that the attorneys involved have been inefficient and. have unnecessarily duplicated each other’s efforts. See Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Hughes, 312 F.Supp. 478 (S.D.N.Y.1970), modified on other grounds, 449 F.2d 51 (2d Cir.1971), rev’d on other grounds, 409 U.S. 363, 93 S.Ct. 647, 34 L.Ed.2d 577 (1973). But in adhering to this approach the court is not selecting one method of computing fee awards over another, because in reality neither the time/hourly rate nor the percentage recovery approaches are in themselves totally adequate for this endeavor. The latter underscores the size of the recovery, which may mean that a large fee will be awarded when only modest effort was involved, or that only a small fee is allowed from a small recovery, even though an unusual amount of skill was required and the case was extraordinarily complex, while in concentrating on the number of hours expended, the, court may reward inefficiency and penalize efficiency. The formula to be used here incorporates the best features of both in a two step process. The figure derived by multiplying the number of hours spent by the hourly rate selected by the court— the “lodestar” component of the fee award — is certainly no more than a useful starting point, for this total is not an accurate measure of the full benefit conferred upon the class when serious risks of failure are overcome in the process of creating a large settlement fund. See Knighton v. Watkins, 616 F.2d 795 (5th Cir.1980). After the first round of calculations, the lodestar must be modified to account for the impact of a number of less objective factors, which when aggregated provide a rough measure of the risk involved, the quality of the work rendered, and the enduring effects of the litigation. See Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc., 488 F.2d 714 (5th Cir. 1974). From an evaluation of these shifting variables, the court can determine to what extent the lodestar should be enhanced or diminished to reflect the unusual circumstances of this case. The courts cannot expect the higher caliber firms or attorneys to agree to prosecute complex antitrust cases against well-financed, able defense attorneys unless they have reason to believe that they will be rewarded if after a protracted struggle they are successful. On the assumption, then, that the court is more likely to derive a reasonable base for computing an appropriate fee award by approximating the historical value for the services rendered, the first step is to total the number of compensable hours spent by each applicant in the class’ behalf. To compute these hours the court has relied on the records furnished by each applicant, which itemize the time spent on a variety of services in fractions of an hour. These records have been examined with several objectives in mind. First and foremost is to eliminate time spent on tasks that was duplicated by another member of the same firm or by another firm. In multi-party cases involving several firms the danger of duplication always exists if only because the lines of communication between the participating firms may not be functioning constantly. When it is apparent that some redundancy among firms is present, the court has eliminated these unnecessary hours in accordance with the chain of command and the division of labor established among the plaintiffs’ counsel; if one firm was assigned or simply assumed sole responsibility for a given chore, then the hours it reasonably spent in conferring this specific benefit upon the class were spared over those expended by another firm merely duplicating its effort. To the extent possible the court has consistently endeavored to excise those hours that did not go directly towards creating a benefit for the class. Practically any time spent on this litigation by these attorneys arguably contributed to the settlement of the cases and thus indirectly conferred a benefit upon the class, even though the time was actually devoted to a client’s special interests, which may or may not have coincided with those of the class. Where feasible, then, the court has attempted to distinguish between time spent in promoting the interests of a client and those of the class as a whole. Also included within this noncompensable category are many of the hours spent reviewing the numerous pleadings that crossed the desks of plaintiffs’ counsel; while the court may agree that it is important for everyone to keep abreast of the recent developments in all the cases, at some point the diminishing returns of further reyiew preclude charging these hours to the class. Again, the line between compensable and noncompensable hours was drawn according to the divisions of labor established among the plaintiffs. In reviewing these applications the court did not eliminate all the hours spent researching or otherwise preparing for liability issues, even though these theories were never put to the test before the cases were settled and therefore the benefit to the class from this work is more remote than the time spent negotiating with the defendants. The court recognizes, though, that a command of the legal principles affecting all the major issues in the litigation may be indispensable in settlement negotiations, where the outcome is likely to turn upon counsel’s ability to persuade their opponents that their legal position is tenuous or that at the very least an extremely long and expensive trial will be necessary to resolve the more complex issues. The relative value of each service to the class can be expressed by assigning a higher hourly rate of compensation to those tasks conferring a more direct benefit upon the class. The next obvious step, then, is to value this time, both in terms of how the time was spent and by whom. The court has endeavored to classify the time spent during this litigation by each applicant under the following eight generic headings in order to facilitate the process of computing a reasonable lodestar value: (1) depositions and discovery — includes preparation of and response to interrogatories and preparation for and conduct of depositions, but does not include discovery motions or responses; also includes travel time to and from scheduled depositions when listed separately; (2) general research and examination of documents — includes research on all issues related to litigation and review of papers and correspondence submitted by all parties or attorneys; (3) briefs, pleadings, or other court papers — where possible includes research of issue and preparation of brief on the same issue; (4) hearings and preparation for court —includes pretrial conferences, meetings with the special master, and, where possible, travel time; (5) consultation with other attorneys, parties, and claimants — includes time spent drafting inter-class sharing proposal; (6) settlement negotiations; (7) administrative matters attributable to the multi-party case — preparing filing system for pleadings, class notice, and settlement administration; (8) miscellaneous activities — e.g., consultation with client. The court feels that under the circumstances it is more reasonable to compensate time spent, for example, negotiating settlement agreements and conferring with co-counsel at a higher rate than that spent researching issues, conducting discovery, and drafting legal briefs. The court admits that some of the totals derived under each of these categories are rough approximations, since several of the time records furnished the court clumped many different types of legal services together on a chronological basis, but overall this system of grading should give the court a better idea of how each applicant allocated his time. The customary hourly rate charged for noncontingent cases by the attorneys and firms involved in this litigation range from $250 per hour for a senior partner to $40 per hour for a young associate to $15 per hour for a paralegal. Trammel Vickery, the plaintiffs’ expert witness on attorneys’ fees, testified at the hearing held on November 19, 1979, that these customary fees, if anything, were too low given the skill and experience of many of these attorneys. The court has no reason to doubt that the hourly rates quoted by the applicants are indeed what these attorneys would charge for their professional services when payment is virtually guaranteed; nor does the court intend to challenge Mr. Vickery’s testimony that as they stand these rates constitute a reasonable hourly charge for the attorneys’ time and that these rates are not adjusted to compensate the applicants for contingencies or for the inflationary erosion of their fees due to late payment. But at the same time the court does not believe that these customary market rates, as reasonable as they might otherwise be, are especially relevant when the fee will be awarded from a fund created for the benefit of an unrepresented class. The hourly rate charged these absent, unrepresented class members for the purpose of computing a lodestar award should reflect what an attorney with similar experience, background, skill, and reputation would charge under the same circumstances. The rates quoted by the applicants here are not the hourly rates that they would charge a client for work done in risky litigation. The area of risky litigation is pervaded by contingent fee agreements, which presumably are drafted to compensate the attorney for assuming the risk of recovering nothing for his labor over and above what he customarily charges for his legal services in noncontingent matters. Some courts nonetheless have used the hourly rate quoted by each attorney to compute a lodestar award, e.g., In re Ampicillin Antitrust Litigation, 81 F.R.D. 395 (D.D.C.1978), while others have resolved this problem by either assigning mixed hourly rates across the board for partners, associates, and paralegals or by independently setting hourly rates for each applicant. E.g., National Association of Regional Medical Programs, Inc. v. Weinberger, 396 F.Supp. 842 (D.D.C.1975), aff’d, 546 F.2d 1043 (D.C.Cir.1976); Entin v. Barg, 412 F.Supp. 508 (E.D.Pa.1976); see Payne v. Travenol Laboratories Inc., 74 F.R.D. 19 (M.D.Miss.1976) (applied lower local billing rates to out-of-town counsel). After taking into consideration the skill, experience, and standing of these applicants, the court feels that the hourly rate used to compute this lodestar value should not exceed $150 per hour for any attorney or activity. The court is aware of other decisions, e.g., In re Ampicillin Antitrust Litigation, 81 F.R.D. 395 (D.D.C.1978); In re Equity Funding Corp. of America Securities Litigation, 438 F.Supp. 1303 (C.D.Cal. 1977), in which the courts adopted lodestar hourly rates as high as $200 per hour, as well as a number of cases in which the rates used were much lower than the applicant’s customary billing rate. The decision to hold these applicants to a ceiling of $150 per hour does not conflict in principle with the results in these cases. What is reasonable in any given case must turn upon its peculiar circumstances. By adopting a lesser hourly rate of lodestar compensation here, the court does not mean to imply that counsel in these cases turned in a lower level of performance than in those cases where a significantly higher rate was approved without objection. The court simply feels that a range of rates topping off at $150 per hour will reasonably compensate even the most experienced attorney for his contribution to the creation of this settlement fund. The bottom end of this scale, occupied by paraprofessionals, will be $25 per hour. The middle range of rates will be designated as the court has an opportunity to assess the skill, experience, and reputation of every attorney involved. By applying these hourly rates to the compensable hours logged by each applicant, the court can then derive the first element of the fee award, the lodestar. Harold C. Brown But before actually computing a lodestar award, the court first must dispose of a matter troubling it for some time, the fee application of Harold Brown, co-counsel for the State of Connecticut and for Messrs. Migliaccio and Grammas. In his first application Mr. Brown claimed that he spent 1,030.50 hours in this litigation. Admitting that a mistake had been made in compiling these hours, he later amended his petition, drastically reducing this total to 265.3 hours. At the hearing on these fee applications the court questioned Mr. Brown about the discrepancy between the two computations. He attributed the inflated request to his failure to keep reliable, ongoing records of the time he devoted each day to the various cases he handles. He noted, however, that his amended application understates the amount of time he has spent. According to Mr. Brown, of this more modest figure, eighty-six hours were taken from entries in his private diary; the balance was reconstructed from a close examination of the various papers pertaining to this suit, the docket sheets, and his best recollection. The court does not question that Mr. Brown played a role, albeit an early one, in the prosecution of these cases. Messrs. Berger and Montague, with whom Mr. Brown associated in the early stages of these suits, confirmed at this same hearing that Mr. Brown was a, if not the, originator of the chicken antitrust litigation. The State of Connecticut retained him to bring a class action against the NBMA; he subsequently filed the first national class action in this litigation on behalf of Connecticut and a class consisting of all states and subordinate governmental entities. Messrs. Berger and Montague also agreed that after this suit was filed Mr. Brown continued to assist them in devising strategy and in responding to discovery requests, though the principal burden of carrying this case forward shifted to their firm. Mr. Brown, however, never attended any strategy conferences, participated in any settlement negotiations, or appeared in court with the rest of the plaintiffs’ counsel. The court does not question that Mr. Brown was instrumental in the formative stages of this litigation or that on occasion he helped Messrs. Berger and Montague fulfill their responsibility to their joint clients after the burden of prosecuting these suits shifted to Messrs. Berger and Montague’s firm. But nonetheless the court feels that his application for attorney’s fees should be denied. To begin with, the services performed by Mr. Brown were to a considerable extent rendered on behalf of his clients, the State of Connecticut and the franchisers Migliaccio and Grammas, with little or no spillover to the direct benefit of the class. An award of attorney’s fees from the settlement fund can be predicated only upon those services performed or the hours spent benefiting the whole class. In reviewing these applications, the court has endeavored to differentiate between hours spent benefiting only one client and those that inured to the benefit of the whole class, using only the latter to estimate a reasonable value of the attorney’s contribution to the settlement of these cases. The court has also refused to consider some of the hours spent reviewing pleadings and other papers, since this time is usually of only a marginal benefit to the class after everyone involved in the litigation has perused the same papers or transcripts. The court is persuaded after examining Mr. Brown’s application that many of the hours claimed are not compensable under the equitable fund theory. The more serious concern, however, pertains to his initial — and what the court perceives to be grossly excessive — application for attorney’s fees. Mr. Brown originally requested an award from the settlement fund based on the 1,030.5 hours that he claimed were spent on behalf of the class. Had this application not been amended to reduce the hours claimed, the court certainly would not have awarded him the full amount requested, for surely this original application overstates his role in the litigation. The question remains though whether an award can be based on his application as amended. In at least one reported case, Brown v. Stackler, 612 F.2d 1057 (7th Cir.1980), a court denied any fee to an attorney who filed what was believed to be an excessive application, even though the attorney represented the plaintiffs in a civil rights suit successfully challenging the constitutionality of a state statute prohibiting the advertisement of the prices charged for dispensing prescription eyeglasses. The Seventh Circuit agreed with the district court that when an obviously unreasonable fee is requested, the court need not compute sua sponte a more reasonable one. Here, perhaps in response to the outcry from his colleagues but certainly not due to any suggestion by the court, Mr. Brown amended his application, reducing the hours claimed by approximately seventy-five percent, but even though he may have brought his claim back within the realm of reasonable possibilities by this drastic reduction, in its discretion the court concludes that attorney’s fees should not be awarded Mr. Brown from the settlement fund. The fact that the majority of the hours claimed in the amended application were reconstructed from those same records that supported the original inflated request, although persuasive, is not determinative here, since in appropriate circumstances reconstructed hours, when fair and reasonable, would be sufficient to support an award of attorney’s fees. See, e.g., Harkless v. Sweeny Independent School District, 608 F.2d 594 (5th Cir.1979); City of Detroit v. Grinnell Corp., 560 F.2d 1093, 1102 (2d Cir.1977). But see In re Wal-feld Co., 345 F.2d 676 (2d Cir. 1965). This court, however, feels, as did the court in Brown, that the only sure way to encourage counsel to keep accurate, current records is to reject fee applications based on unreliable accounts of an applicant’s participation in a suit. While an attorney of Mr. Brown’s acknowledged reputation may prefer not to bother himself with such a thankless, mundane task as daily recordkeeping, he should expect a chilly reception from the court whose responsibility in awarding attorney’s fees from a common fund includes the protection of the class. This duty cannot be discharged unless the court demands that fee petitions be supported by reliable records indicating precisely how much time was spent and on what aspects of the litigation the attorney worked. Otherwise, the admonition that fee awards be reasonable would amount to nothing more than a rule that fee requests not be so unreasonable as to shock the conscience of the court; the predicate for each award must spring from a reliable base of records. The disparity between his two applications demonstrates to the court that Mr. Brown’s method of calculating the time he has spent on these cases is inherently unreliable. The final alternative for the court is to work solely from the eighty-six hours that Mr. Brown states were recorded in his private diary. But, though Mr. Brown testified to the various labors he performed as one of the attorneys in this case, and though Messrs. Berger and Montague for the most part corroborated this testimony, he never explained to the court’s satisfaction how such a gross error in totaling these hours could have been committed if he was exercising the supreme care and diligence in preparing his application that he should as a member of the bar and as an officer of this court. Though the court does not mean to suggest that Mr. Brown intended to perpetrate a fraud upon this court, for certainly there is no evidence to support this accusation, it does believe that Mr. Brown’s negligence borders on a violation of professional ethics. Disciplinary rule 2-106 of the American Bar Association’s Code of Professional Responsibility admonishes attorneys not to charge excessive or unreasonable fees, ones that “a lawyer of ordinary prudence would be left with a definite and firm conviction that the fee is in excess of a reasonable fee.” The responsibility for ensuring that a fee request is reasonable before submitting it to a court for approval clearly rests with the attorney. When he fails to exercise the care required to discharge this duty for no apparent reason other than his own unwillingness to keep reliable records, the court feels that an award of attorney’s fees would be inappropriate. For all of the above reasons, the court hereby denies Mr. Brown’s application for attorney’s fees from the settlement fund. Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin Dickstein, Shapiro & Morin [D, S & M] was retained by Purity Supreme, Inc., the class representative for the supermarket class, and by the States of Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Rhode Island, and Virginia, but all agree that the firm carried the laboring oar in the prosecution of this national class action. Aside from representing its own clients, D, S & M acted as lead counsel for all the plaintiffs and in this capacity was primarily responsible for preparing most of the pleadings and memoranda, for coordinating all the various single and joint activities of the plaintiffs’ counsel, for collecting the information undergirding the settlement proposals, for orchestrating the settlement negotiations with the multiple defendants, and for executing the settlement agreements. A lengthy discussion of the skill and experience shown by the firm in this litigation is unnecessary since its excellent reputation in this field precedes it, and based on the court’s frequent observation of its work, the firm demonstrated here that this reputation is well deserved. If the courts could somehow be sure that attorneys of this caliber would always be available to prosecute private antitrust suits, then the private enforcement of the antitrust laws envisioned by Congress would be a reality, rather than the popular myth it is today. The members of this firm have vigorously and skillfully represented the whole class, and the outstanding results are due in no small measure to their persistent efforts to secure the best terms for the plaintiffs. In its application D, S & M states that a total of 15,923.25 hours, 8,645.5 hours of attorney time, 7,176 hours spent by paralegals, and 101.75 hours by law clerks or summer associates, was spent in prosecuting this litigation on the class’ behalf. The normal hourly rates charged by its attorneys for noncontingent work range from $200 per hour for Mr. Shapiro to $60 per hour for a starting associate; law clerks and paralegals normally command $25 per hour. Based on these figures, D, S & M requests a lodestar award of $1,152,521.25, and $95,740.75 in litigation costs. To fulfill its responsibility to the absent class members, the court must assess D, S & M’s role in this litigation and endeavor to place a reasonable value upon the firm’s contribution to the settlement of these cases. Because the individuals assigned to this litigation possess varying degrees of skill and experience, and since each assumed different levels of responsibility for the completion of this work, it will be necessary to isolate and examine the benefit each individual conferred upon the class. David I. Shapiro Though lead counsel was never officially designated, Mr. Shapiro was generally recognized as the leader of the plaintiffs’ counsel; throughout the litigation, negotiation, and administrative stages of these cases he has occupied a, if not the, pivotal position. As the senior participant of the workhorse firm, Mr. Shapiro skillfully steered these suits through the many twists and turns they took during the five years from their commencement to settlement. On several occasions he acted as the plaintiffs’ spokesman in court. Mr. Shapiro is also one of the members of the Settlement Administration Committee, whose responsibility it is to ensure that all the terms of the various settlement agreements are honored and that the claims filed against the settlement fund are verified and considered. Mr. Vickery, the plaintiffs’ expert witness on attorneys’ fees, testified that based on his knowledge of Mr. Shapiro’s skill, reputation, and standing in the plaintiffs’ antitrust bar and on his personal experience in working with and against him, he considered Mr. Shapiro to be the absolute top of the plaintiffs’ antitrust bar. Mr. Vickery further testified that the $200 per hour charge Mr. Shapiro normally charges for noncontingent cases was if anything too low for the skill and experience he lends to each case. The court is persuaded by this testimony and its observation of Mr. Shapiro during the prosecution of these suits that he possesses unusual skill and creativity in this field and for this reason will use the highest hourly rate to be awarded in these suits to compute the lodestar component of his fee. According to his application Mr. Shapiro spent 1,766.5 hours litigating these suits on the plaintiffs’ behalf. The overwhelming majority of this time, approximately 1,287.5 hours, was devoted to the consultations with other attorneys and parties leading up to the drafting, consummation, and approval of the settlement agreements, tasks which the court considers of the highest priority and therefore to be compensated at the highest rate of $150 per hour. With the exception of 87.5 hours expended, in the court’s estimation, on the behalf of D, S & M’s clients and not for the benefit of the plaintiffs as a whole, the court values the remaining hours at the same hourly rate of $150. The lodestar award to Mr. Shapiro thus comes to $251,850.00. Arthur J. Galligan Mr. Galligan requests a lodestar award of $146,406.25, derived by multiplying the 1,171.25 hours he has spent by his customary noncontingent rate of $125 per hour. Pursuant to Settlement Order No. 2, entered March 28, 1978, the Settlement Administration Committee was established, with Mr. Galligan, an acknowledged expert at administering class action distributions, as chairman. For the most part his involvement in this litigation was limited to performing the more mundane administrative work entrusted to this committee — for example, investing portions of the settlement fund, preparing a mailing list, establishing procedures for processing claims — but the court recognizes the unusual skill, imagination, and experience he brings to this endeavor, and the importance of this phase of the litigation to the overall speedy conclusion of these cases. Without the services of an experienced and conscientious administrator such as Mr. Galligan the squabbles among the plaintiffs over the proper procedures for notifying prospective claimants, receiving, cataloguing, and verifying claims, and distributing proportionate shares of the fund to the proper parties could unnecessarily prolong the creation and distribution of the fund, to everyone’s detriment. For the 1,048.75 hours spent in this line of service the court feels that a rate of $125 per hour is fair and reasonable; the remainder of his time, 122.5 hours, will also be valued for lodestar purposes at $125 per hour. Mr. Galligan’s lodestar award, then, totals $146,406.25. James van R. Springer Mr. Springer apparently is the chief wordsmith of D, S & M, though he was assigned to this litigation to do much more than draft briefs. He spent a total of 635 hours, with only about a third of these devoted to preparing, revising, or reviewing court papers. Mr. Springer normally bills his time at $125 per hour, a rate that Mr. Vickery considered to be extremely reasonable in light of Mr. Springer’s skill, experience, and reputation. Under the circumstances here the court concludes that a reasonable hourly fee is $115. Multiplying this figure by the number of hours expended— excluding 6.5 hours that the court feels inured to the class’ benefit in only the most indirect way — the court arrives at a lodestar amount of $72,277.50. Other Partners Several other partners in D, S & M, namely Messrs. Polk, Treadway, and Dick-stein, contributed some of their time to this worthy cause, time that the court should recognize before computing the fee award to the firm. Mr. Treadway, one of the firm’s corporate specialists, for example, assisted in the critical task of analyzing the notes and the security given by the defendants and their financial statements, without which the plaintiffs could not possibly have moved through the settlement to the administration stage. These partners’ accumulated time is 120 hours, 96 hours of which the court concludes were spent on work benefiting the whole class. Their normal hourly rates range between $150 and $100. The court, however, concludes that a reasonable hourly rate for this stage of the calculation is $115, leaving a lodestar award of $11,040.00. Joel Kleinman If Mr. Shapiro was the field commander, then just as surely Mr. Kleinman was his trusted foot soldier. No one attorney, and with one exception no firm, spent more time working on this litigation than he, 4,345.25 hours in all. His duties stretched the full spectrum of chores involved in each phase of the litigation, from discovery on the class certification issue to research on the questions of liability to some aspects of settlement administration. In reviewing the number of hours he spent, however, the court notes that as a matter of principle a fair and reliable assessment of an associate’s contribution to the successful result here is more difficult since to a limited extent the use of associates for other than the more routine tasks is inefficient. Generally, an associate will take longer to complete an assignment, and his work will usually have to be reviewed and sometimes revised by his seniors, but the court would not want to indirectly discourage firms from using associates to perform tasks of this nature by sharpening its pencil on an associate’s fee application. An opportunity such as one offered Mr. Kleinman to concentrate on a complex piece of litigation from a tenuous start to a successful finish should not lightly be denied a rising associate if the courts are the least bit concerned about the quality of the trial bar. Mr. Kleinman’s rapid maturation as an attorney, acknowledged by D, S & M and reflected in the greater responsibility given him in this litigation, is at least partially due to this opportunity. D, S & M states in its application that over the course of the litigation Mr. Klein-man’s customary hourly rate has increased from a low of $60 in 1974 to $75 from January 1, 1975 to June 30, 1977, to $85 since July 1, 1977, as he matured and thus became more useful to the firm. Taking into account his rise in the firm’s hierarchy, and pay scale, Mr. Kleinman requests a lodestar award of $329,486.25. Of all the hours listed by Mr. Kleinman, the court has disallowed only 53 hours spent early in this campaign on general research that was unrelated to the course this litigation ultimately assumed. The court feels that the remaining 4,292.25 hours should be compensated at a mixed rate of $65 per hour, which takes into account the skill and experience he acquired while assigned to these cases. Mr. Kleinman’s lodestar award, then, is $278,996.25. Other Associates D, S & M periodically called in several other associates to share the workload with Mr. Kleinman, often for assignments when their field of expertise might be helpful. They spent a total of 607.5 hours, primarily in preparing court papers, researching, and completing administrative tasks necessitated by this multi-case litigation. Their normal billing rate ranges between $60 and $85 per hour, and their lodestar request totals $47,784.50. Of the hours listed for these associates, the court has identified and stricken 24.5 of these hours that in the court’s opinion were spent furthering the more specific interests of their own clients or were duplicated by others. Applying what it feels to be a reasonable hourly rate of $60, the court derives a lodestar of $34,-980.00. Local Counsel James C. Wood was retained by the Attorney General of Alabama to assist D, S & M as local counsel for that state. He states that in this role he spent 149 hours helping D, S & M collect information, prepare for depositions, and conduct settlement negotiations, all of which time he would normally bill at $75 per hour. Having reviewed his application, the court, however, disagrees that all these hours benefited the class as a whole; while every increment of time spent catering to a specific client or subclass may cumulatively improve the lot of the whole class, the court, in figuring his contribution to the outcome of these cases, does not intend to consider work that only remotely or indirectly benefits the class. Of the 149 hours listed, 38.5 of these clearly were not committed to the creation or pursuit of any class advantage but were spent for the sole purpose of furthering the similar but more narrow interests of his client. At $65 per hour, which the court feels is a reasonable rate of return on the time spent operating in such a limited role, his lodestar total comes to $7,182.50. Paralegals and Law Clerks D, S & M’s paralegals and law clerks spent a combined total of 7,277.75 hours working on all phases of this litigation. By way of support for this portion of their fee request, D, S & M congratulates itself for what it considers to be a less costly and more efficient use of support personnel to perform tasks that do not require the special education and experience — nor the expense — of a full-fledged attorney. In the not so distant past the court would have frowned upon the practice of billing paraprofessional time separate from attorney time just as it might if a firm separately recorded and billed the hours spent by a secretary on a specific client, see City of Detroit v. Grinnell Corp., 560 F.2d 1093, 1095 n. 2 (2d Cir.1977), but the standing of paraprofessionals has improved significantly as special training has enabled them to undertake a wide variety of more sophisticated tasks previously assigned exclusively to higher priced lawyers. The advent and widespread use of the paraprofessional has meant that the cost of effective legal counsel has been reduced and its availability enhanced without impairing the quality or delivery of legal services. Courts awarding attorneys’ fees have a unique opportunity to encourage the use of paraprofessional help in the areas where it might prove invaluable by permitting a firm to recoup its cost. The standard to be used here in assessing the hours billed by paralegals is the same, however: only the time necessarily devoted to this litigation on projects related to the common interests of the class and not duplicated by others will be figured into the court’s calculations. As for the hourly rate of compensation, the court has reviewed several cases of a similar nature and of equal complexity in which paralegal time has been remunerated on an hourly basis and concludes that $25 per hour is a fair and reasonable rate of compensation. D, S & M’s paralegals logged 7,176 hours working at a variety of jobs, but for the most part they concentrated on preparing the class action notice, responding to discovery requests, and performing other chores pertaining to settlement administration. Of this total the court has excised 57 hours spent conducting very general research on issues that did not figure significantly into this litigation. The lodestar award for D, S & M’s paralegals, then, comes to $177,975.00. The law clerks and summer associates spent a total of 101.75 hours on this litigation, most of which was devoted to researching and writing legal briefs. The court feels that due to their professional training, although not quite completed, the law clerks sit a notch above the paralegal and their time should therefore be compensated at a slightly higher rate. Under the circumstances the court believes that $35 per hour is a reasonable value for their services. Thus, their lodestar award totals $3,561.25. The lodestar award for D, S & M’s attorneys, law clerks, paralegals, and local counsel then comes to $984,268.75. Liaison Counsel: Messrs. Vickery and Bondurant The spokesman for all the plaintiffs in this litigation was liaison counsel, whose principal responsibilities were to pull the divergent views expressed among the plaintiffs together for a unified, persuasive presentation to the court and to coordinate the work of the numerous, far-flung firms. As the plaintiffs’ conductor, he was to attempt to blend the cacophony of voices into a melodic chorus, one capable of soothing the defendant and transfixing the court. To perform this task liaison counsel had to keep abreast of all the developments in this litigation and in others whose outcome might affect the disposition of the plaintiffs’ claims. The plaintiffs were blessed with two experienced and esteemed antitrust attorneys, Messrs. Vickery and Bondurant. Mr. Vickery first undertook this chore in 1974, while a member of the Atlanta firm of Jones, Bird and Howell. In return for his services, the plaintiffs' counsel agreed to compensate Mr. Vickery’s firm for all the time he spent on this litigation, whether they were successful or not, at his customary billing rate. After spending 1,237.1 hours, Mr. Vickery was forced to withdraw in the fall of 1975, when he left Jones, Bird and Howell to join Hansell, Post, Brandon and Dorsey, which happened to be acting as local counsel for one of the defendants. Multiplying these hours by its historical rates, the firm requests a fee of $54,251.50. If the court should award less than this amount, the plaintiffs’ counsel have agreed to make up the difference on a pro rata basis. As the firm’s application stands now, however, the court does not intend to award any fee from the settlement fund, even though it acknowledges that Mr. Vickery performed valuable services benefiting the whole class. The court may only award fees in this litigation to the extent of the reasonable market value of the attorney’s input into the creation of the settlement fund; without some indication of how and on what an attorney spent his time, the court has no basis for saying that the applicant contributed to the settlement of these cases. The court is not adverse to awarding attorney’s fees to Mr. Vickery’s former firm, and it recognizes that liaison counsel is in effect class counsel, but until the court is supplied with the proper records, no action will be taken on this application. When Mr. Vickery withdrew, the plaintiffs’ counsel quickly retained Mr. Bondurant to replace him. While Mr. Bondurant also switched allegiances during his tenure as liaison counsel, this change did not force a premature retirement from this position; it only increased his noncontingent hourly billing rate. As a member of the firm of Kilpatrick & Cody, Mr. Bondurant expended 525.5 hours on these suits; later, as a founding partner of the new firm of Trotter, Bondurant, Griffin, Miller & Hishon, he spent an additional 406.4 hours. For the hours spent consulting with the other attorneys and parties, negotiating the settlement agreements, and preparing for and representing the class in court, which according to the court’s calculations total 583.8, the court feels that an hourly rate of $125 is appropriate, since this time was devoted to tasks of critical importance to the settlement of these cases. Of the 348.1 hours remaining, the court has eliminated 34.2 hours spent in the early going when Mr. Bondurant was acquainting himself with what had transpired until Mr. Vickery’s unexpected departure; in the court’s opinion, these hours were not related to any direct benefit shared by the class for which it should be charged. To the balance, 313.9 hours, the court also assigns an hourly rate of $125. Mr. Bondurant’s lodestar award then comes to $112,212.50. Messrs. Swann and Alexander, partners of Mr. Bondurant at Kilpatrick & Cody, logged a total of 58.3 hours assisting him in this litigation. Of this amount the court disallows 30.5 hours for the same reason set forth above. At what the court feels is a reasonable hourly rate of $100, their lodestar award is $2,780.00. Mr. Bondurant also enlisted the help of several associates from both firms. Their combined time in this litigation is 339.5 hours. The court feels that a reasonable rate of compensation for this mixture of associates is $50 per hour. As a result, the associates’ lodestar equals $16,975.00. Paraprofessionals from both firms also performed a wide variety of indispensable services on the class’ behalf. The court has already discussed the instrumental role played by paralegals in the modern law firm and need not reiterate those observations here. Suffice it to say that by easing the workload on the attorneys, paralegals ensure that a client will receive more efficient, less expensive legal service, without diminishing its quality. The total number of hours claimed by these paraprofessionals is 723.8. The court, however, has eliminated 48.9 hours spent when Mr. Bondurant first entered this litigation on administrative tasks such as familiarizing themselves with the filing system; while it was certainly important that Mr. Bondurant’s paralegals understand the system devised by Mr. Vickery, the court does not feel that it would be appropriate to charge the class for this time. Accordingly, multiplying the remaining hours by the standard hourly rate of $25 used by the courts for paralegal time, the court arrives at a lodestar award of $16,872.50. The lodestar award to Mr. Bondurant on behalf of Kilpatrick & Cody and Trotter, Bondurant, Griffin, Miller & Hishon, then, equals $148,840.00. Berger & Montague, P.C. Another principal architect of the plaintiffs’ successful strategy was the Philadelphia firm of Berger & Montague, P.C. Since filing the first nationwide class action on behalf of all the states, the firm has been extremely active in all phases of this litigation. As testimony to its enviable reputation in antitrust and class action suits, Berger & Montague performed with the same redoubtable skill and foresight throughout the prosecution of these suits. The firm seeks an award for the 5,000 hours it contributed to this endeavor. Having observed several members of the firm in action and being generally familiar with the work it performed, the court is persuaded that Berger & Montague has conferred a direct benefit upon the class for which it should receive compensation from the settlement fund. David Berger As the senior and most experienced attorney in the firm, Mr. Berger limited his involvement in this litigation principally to overseeing the work done by others in his firm, thus keeping his hours to a minimum. During the five years his firm was busy with these suits, Mr. Berger logged only 175.5 hours. He requests that this time be compensated at his customary noncontingent hourly rate of $250, for a lodestar of $43,875.00. The court, however, does not believe that all these hours are compensable under the equitable fund doctrine. Of this total 30 hours were spent on miscellaneous activities, such as reviewing files or consulting with the firm’s clients, that did not create any benefit extending to the whole class and therefore should not be charged to the absent, unrepresented class members. The remainder of these hours will be multiplied by a $150 hourly rate, which the court feels is a reasonable rate of return for an attorney of his skill and experience. Mr. Berger’s lodestar award, then, comes to $21,825.00. H. Laddie Montague, Jr. The operational responsibility for this litigation fell to the chairman of the firm’s antitrust department, Mr. Montague, who of necessity invested considerably more time in prosecuting these cases than Mr. Berger. In several respects Mr. Montague occupied the third seat of the plaintiffs’ troika, the other two seats being held by Messrs. Shapiro and Bondurant. Under his seasoned leadership the firm undertook a wide variety of difficult and time-consuming tasks for the benefit of the class, all of which were performed effectively and efficiently. He himself devoted 708 hours, the majority of which were spent either negotiating the settlement agreements, consulting with the other attorneys involved in this suit, or preparing court papers. Of this total the court has stricken 81.75 hours spent performing either compensable tasks, such as discovery or the review of documents, or non-compensable miscellaneous tasks, none of which inured to the direct benefit of the class. Multiplying the balance of these hours by an hourly rate of $125, the court arrives at a lodestar award of $78,281.25. Joel C. Meredith Mr. Meredith assumed essentially the role of a utility man, performing a wide variety of tasks. Although relatively young when he began work on these suits, he was given a considerable amount of responsibility from the start. He frequently attended the meetings held by the plaintiffs to discuss trial and settlement strategy, and he played a major role in presenting the plaintiffs’ positions in court papers and in conducting discovery. Of the 952.16 hours Mr. Meredith spent on these cases, the court, however, has eliminated 86.16 hours that only remotely contributed to the creation of the settlement fund. The remaining 866 hours will be multiplied by a rate of $75 per hour, which the court concludes represents a reasonable market value for Mr. Meredith’s services over the time period given his relative inexperience when he began working on this litigation. Therefore, the lodestar award to Mr. Meredith equals $64,950.00. Merrill G. Davidoff Mr. Davidoff almost seems to pick up where Mr. Meredith left off when the latter departed from Berger & Montague to start his own firm. Logging 315.5 hours, he performed essentially the same wide range of tasks, although he too was relatively inexperienced when first assigned to this litigation. Sixty-four of these hours, however, are not compensable under the equitable fund doctrine for the same reasons stated earlier: they are not reasonably related to the creation of any benefit extended the whole class. Multiplying the remaining hours by the reasonable rate of $65 per hour, the court derives a lodestar award of $16,347.50. Steven J. Greenfogel Before becoming the chief of Massachusetts’ antitrust division and re-entering this fray on the state’s behalf as a public attorney general, Mr. Greenfogel spent 1,540.75 hours in this litigation for Berger & Montague. Of this total 50 hours spent in discovery, 68.5 hours devoted to general research, 17.5 hours spent preparing court papers, 135 hours allocated to miscellaneous tasks such as reviewing files, and 26.5 hours devoted to the firm’s clients did not go towards conferring any benefit upon the class and therefore are not compensable. Taking into consideration Mr. Greenfogel’s inexperience at the start of his involvement in this litigation and his concentration on routine research and writing assignments, the court feels that $55 per hour will reasonably approximate the value of his contribution to the class for this phase of the computations. His lodestar award, then, is $68,378.75. Robert S. Balter Of the 190.25 hours spent by Mr. Balter, the court concludes that only the 1.75 hours spent on the application for attorneys’ fees and the 5 hours devoted to miscellaneous tasks are noncompensable. The remaining hours, largely devoted t