Full opinion text
MEMORANDUM OPINION AUBREY E. ROBINSON, JR., Chief Judge. I. Introduction This case is before the Court on Plaintiffs’ application for an award of over $5 million in reasonable attorneys’ fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k). The application is the most recent — although certainly not the final — stage of this protracted Title VII and Equal Pay Act litigation. The action has been an extraordinary undertaking in many respects, consuming thirteen years and thousands of personnel hours and raising numerous issues under both statutes. It was virtually inevitable that the action would culminate in an equally extraordinary fee petition. The torturous history of this litigation need not be recounted in detail. It is sufficient to note that the saga began on July 15, 1970 with the filing of a complaint on behalf of a class of Defendant’s female flight attendants; ten counts were brought under Title VII and four counts under the Equal Pay Act. In the ensuing thirteen years, the parties and their counsel committed their time, energies, and considerable legal skill to an extended period of pretrial discovery, a full trial on the merits, two rounds of appeals, and one certiorari petition. And the end is not yet in sight. The parties have appealed this Court’s judgment of November 30, 1982 and this Court fully expects the disposition of Plaintiffs’ fee application to follow the same course. This opinion clearly is not the final word in- this litigation. The fee application process began in earnest in June 1982. At that time, all other remand issues having been resolved or submitted to the Court for resolution, the Court entered an Order directing counsel to commence negotiations on the attorneys’ fees and to report to the Court on the status of those discussions.* Bredhoff & Kaiser, the law firm that represented Plaintiffs throughout the entire litigation, had retained Daniel Rezneck of Arnold & Porter to negotiate and, if necessary, litigate the attorneys’ fee award. Michael Gottesman, Plaintiffs’ principal counsel and one of the senior partners at Bredhoff & Kaiser, explained that the firm believed the fee award could most effectively be pursued by a “dispassionate ... highly experienced litigator who was not so intimately involved in the Laffey case.” In November 1982, the parties advised the Court that their negotiation efforts had produced no accord and presented the Court with a proposed schedule for the orderly litigation of the attorneys’ fee. The parties’ timetable — approved by the Court on December 1, 1982 — called for several months of discovery prior to submission of the formal fee petition. The discovery was undertaken and, following the Court’s resolution of the disputes that arose during that process, Plaintiffs filed their Application for an Award of Attorneys’ Fees and Expenses (hereinafter “Plaintiffs’ Application”) on March 22, 1983. This document was followed by (1) the Submission of Northwest Airlines, Inc., with Respect to Plaintiffs’ Application for an Award of Attorneys’ Fees and Expenses (“NWA Submission”); (2) Plaintiffs’ Reply Brief in Support of the Application; (3) Defendant’s Response to Plaintiffs’ Reply Brief; (4) Plaintiffs’ Supplemental Application for an Award of Attorneys’ Fees and Expenses (“Supplemental Application”); (5) Defendant’s Response to the Supplemental Application; and (6) Plaintiffs’ Reply Brief in Support of the Supplemental Application; (7) Plaintiffs’ Update to the Supplemental Application; and (8) Defendant’s Response to Plaintiffs’ Update. These submissions were accompanied by multiple volumes of appendices, exhibits, affidavits, charts, summaries, and the like. The result is a fee application covering all hours worked and expenses incurred from July 15, 1970 to July 15, 1983 and encompassing well over a thousand pages of material. It is the most extensive fee petition this Court has ever received. The following chart summarizes the amounts claimed by Plaintiffs for their counsels’ fees and expenses and the amounts Defendant suggests are properly sought. It is evident from this tabulation that the parties’ view of the fee request is markedly dissimilar. AMOUNTS NWA’s BREDHOFF & KAISER REQUESTED PROPOSAL Merits Issues Fees: Lodestar $ 1,494,450.80 $ 903,875.15 200% Adjustment 2,988,901.60 Expenses: Paralegals/Clerks 76290.15 76,065.00 Disbursements $ 101,183.84 29,390.04 Sub-Total: $ 4,660,826.39 $1,009,330.19 BREDHOFF & KAISER AMOUNTS NWA’s REQUESTED PROPOSAL Attorney Fee Issues Fees: Lodestar $ 193,481.27 $ 39,240.63 Expenses: Paralegals/Clerks 27,529.50 9,244.50 Disbursements 4,960.32 608.81 Sub-Total: $ 225,971.09 $ 49,093.94 ARNOLD & PORTER Attorney Fee Issues Fees: Lodestar $ 164,893.75 $ 25,070.76 Expenses: Paralegals/Clerks 25,770.00 10,061.25 Disbursements $ 20,916.33 2,589.63 Sub-Total: $ 211,580.08 $ 37,721.64 TOTAL: $ 5,098,377.56 $1,096,145.77 * Defendant does not specify the multiplier that would be appropriate, but suggests that it be limited to a “very modest” contingency increase. The Court’s assessment of these competing claims follows, as it must, the market value methodology adopted by the Court of Appeals in this Circuit: the number of hours reasonably devoted to the litigation is multiplied by the attorneys’ reasonable hourly rates to arrive at the “lodestar” calculation. This sum then may be adjusted upward or downward to reflect the characteristics of the particular case (and counsel) for which the award is sought. See Copeland v. Marshall (“Copeland ”) 641 F.2d 880 (D.C.Cir.1980) (en banc); National Association of Concerned Veterans v. Secretary of Defense (“Concerned Veterans”), 675 F.2d 1319 (D.C.Cir.1982). Because many of the calculations mandated by this methodology are inherently imprecise and require certain estimates or approximations, the Court must exercise its discretion — soundly informed by its knowledge of the litigation before it and the experience it has acquired in numerous other cases — to arrive at the final fee award. This Court has reviewed the Laffey fee application in all its exhaustive detail and concludes that the following award of attorneys’ fees and costs constitutes a fair, reasonable and fully compensatory award. II. Number of Hours Reasonably Expended The first component of any court-awarded attorneys’ fee is the number of hours reasonably expended on the litigation. Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1323; Copeland, 641 F.2d at 891. Although a fee applicant is entitled to full compensation for his counsels’ efforts, “[i]t does not follow that the amount of time actually expended is the amount of time reasonably expended.” Copeland, 641 F.2d at 891. “Billing judgment” is an important element of fee setting, whether the fee is set in the private sector by an attorney, or is awarded by a court pursuant to a fee-shifting statute; in each instance, excessive or unproductive hours are excluded from the fee calculations. Id. See also Hensley v. Eckerhart, - U.S. -,---, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 1937-1940, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). The fee applicant bears a “heavy obligation” to document the number of hours devoted to the litigation. Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1323-1324. Although it is not necessary to know “the exact number of minutes spent nor the precise activity to which each hour was devoted,” the fee application must contain sufficient detail to permit both the court and opposing counsel to conduct an informed appraisal of the merits of the application. Id. at 1327. Where the fee applicant has omitted nonproductive time from the fee request, the application should identify “the nature of the work and the number of hours involved.” Id. at 1327-1328. Plaintiffs have requested compensation for 13,932.25 hours of attorney time. In support of that request, Plaintiffs have proffered extensive supporting documentation, including a day-by-day breakdown of the time spent during the past 13 years by each attorney on the case and a description of the hours that were excluded from the application in the exercise of “billing judgment.” Defendant does not contest the reasonableness of most of the hours Plaintiffs’ counsel invested in this litigation — and with good reason. This Court’s independent examination of the hours devoted to this action indicates that they are documented in accordance with the criteria set forth in Concerned Veterans and, in most instances, were reasonably expended. There are, however, four categories of hours that Defendant challenges as unreasonable; the Court deals with each category of contested hours separately below. A. The “Lost Issues” Because Title VII authorizes an award of fees only to a “prevailing” party, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(k), Defendant , objects to an award of fees for the hours Plaintiffs’ counsel spent preparing and litigating motions that were decided in Defendant’s favor. Defendant originally identified six “lost issues” for which it contends compensation should be denied, but withdrew its challenge as to two issues following the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in Hensley v. Eckerhart,-U.S.-, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983). Four issues and 254.25 attorney hours remain in dispute. This Court concurs in Defendant’s assessment that Hensley is relevant to this dispute, but concludes that virtually all of the hours devoted to the so-called “lost issues” are fully compensable. It is true, of course, that “no compensation should be paid for time spent litigating claims upon which the party seeking the fee did not ultimately prevail.” Copeland, 641 F.2d at 891-892 (footnote omitted). The Court of Appeals has adopted a practical approach to this inquiry, however, Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1327 n. 13, and has admonished trial courts to apply the rule with care: t sometimes will be the case that a lawsuit will seek recovery under a variety of legal theories complaining of essentially the same injury. A district judge must take care not to reduce a fee award arbitrarily simply because a plaintiff did not prevail under one or more of these legal theories. No reduction in fee is appropriate where the “issue was all part and parcel of one matter,” but only when the claims asserted “are truly fractionable.” Copeland, 641 F.2d at 892 n. 18 (citations omitted). Hensley v. Eckerhart echoes and elaborates upon this theme. In an opinion fortuitously issued in the midst of this fee litigation, the Supreme Court addressed (1) the standards that govern reduction of a fee award to account for issues on which the fee applicant did not prevail and (2) the relationship of the outcome of a case to an award of attorneys’ fees. The Court concluded that when a fee applicant has succeeded on only some of its claims for relief, the scope of the fee award turns upon two questions: First, did the plaintiff fail to prevail on claims that were unrelated to the claims on which he succeeded? Second, did the plaintiff achieve a level of success that makes the hours reasonably expended a satisfactory basis for making a fee award? -U.S. at-, 103 S.Ct. at 1940. If the claims for relief are unrelated, i.e., based on different facts and legal theories, “counsels’ work on one claim will be unrelated to his work on another claim” and no fee is awarded for time spent in pursuit of the unsuccessful claim. Id. The Court acknowledged, however, that many cases contain only a single claim or present multiple claims for relief that involve a “common core of facts” or related legal theories. In such cases, [m]uch of counsel’s time will be devoted generally to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis. Such a lawsuit cannot be viewed as a series of discrete claims. Instead the district court should focus on the significance of the overall relief obtained by the plaintiff in relation to the hours reasonably expended on the litigation. Where a plaintiff has obtained excellent results, his attorney should recover a fully compensatory fee. Normally this will encompass all hours reasonably expended on the litigation, and indeed in some cases of exceptional success an enhanced award may be justified. In these circumstances the fee award should not be reduced simply because the plaintiff failed to prevail on every contention raised in the lawsuit. Litigants in good faith may raise alternative legal grounds for a desired outcome, and the court’s rejection of or failure to reach certain grounds is not a sufficient reason for reducing a fee. The result is what matters. Id. (citation omitted). With the Hensley standards in mind, this Court has no difficulty concluding that the matters Defendant identifies as “lost issues” are not “distinct in all respects from [Plaintiffs’] successful claims.” -U.S. at -, 103 S.Ct. at 1943. In fact, they flow directly from Plaintiffs’ successful claims, for all of Plaintiffs’ “lost” motions were attempts to define or broaden the scope of remedies for Defendant’s proven wrongdoing. The Court’s focus shifts, therefore, to the extent of Plaintiffs’ success. It is apparent that Plaintiffs’ counsel obtained “excellent results.” Plaintiffs prevailed on every one of fourteen claims of violation and, although not every remedy they sought was awarded, they prevailed on the vast majority of remedial issues and obtained some of the most comprehensive monetary and injunctive relief ever awarded in an employment discrimination case. By any standard of measure, the relief awarded in this case is substantial— both in absolute terms and in comparison to the scope of the litigation and the number of hours expended. Id. On the facts of this case, therefore, it would be inappropriate for this Court to reduce Plaintiffs’ compensable hours because they did not prevail on a handful of relatively minor remedial issues. Plaintiffs undeniably attained substantial relief on a series of closely related claims, and they “should not have [their] attorney[s’] fee reduced simply because the district court did not adopt each contention raised.” Hensley, - U.S. at -, 103 S.Ct. at 1943. The Court notes, however, that 59.25 attorney hours devoted to the so-called “lost issues” are not compensable on other grounds, i.e., that they were not reasonably expended. After this Court resolved the “pre-Act longevity” dispute in Defendant’s favor, Plaintiffs sought reconsideration of the Court’s order. They did so because their counsel “genuinely believed” that the Court’s ruling misconstrued the cases on which it relied and because “they thought they could demonstrate this more clearly than they had” in their original memorandum. Gottesman Affidavit at 158. The Court denied the motion for reconsideration. Four months later, Plaintiffs filed a renewed motion for reconsideration, based upon a subsequent decision in the Tenth Circuit “that they believed supported the position that this Court had rejected in its prior rulings.” Id. The Court denied this motion as well. The Court acknowledges that a great deal of money was at stake in the longevity dispute and that the issue was fully deserving of the parties’ time and energies. The Court acknowledges, too, the sincerity of counsels’ belief that its ruling was unwise or erroneous. Counsels’ convictions, however, do not justify repeated litigation of the issue. Both parties were afforded a full opportunity to brief the question prior to this Court’s ruling. Plaintiffs’ decision to invest an additional 59.25 attorney hours to reargue the matter was unreasonable and will not be sanctioned through an award of fees. The following deductions are appropriate: Gottesman 43.875 hrs. (at $175/hr.) Weinberg 15.375 hrs. (at $150/hr.) B. Gilbert Feldman’s Hours Among the mass of attorney hours for which Plaintiffs seek compensation are 160.5 hours logged by Gilbert Feldman immediately prior to and during the trial of this action. After noting that Feldman represented a class of flight attendants in a similar action against Trans World Airlines, Defendant contends that none of his hours are compensable because (1) Feldman was not retained by Plaintiffs to represent them and (2) he observed the Laffey trial solely for the benefit of his own clients. The Court rejects Defendant’s argument as factually inaccurate and inconsistent with the law in this Circuit. The affidavits submitted by Michael Gottesman demonstrate that Feldman was more than a passive on-looker in this litigation; he performed a variety of legal services for Plaintiffs, including pre-trial preparation of witnesses, examination of a witness at trial, and “on-the-spot” counseling on questions that arose during trial. Feldman performed these services at Gottesman’s request and pursuant to an oral agreement with Gottesman that he would serve as additional counsel for Plaintiffs at trial and that his time would be included in the fee claim if Plaintiffs prevailed. The fact that Feldman was not formally retained by Plaintiffs and was not paid for his work is irrelevant; it does not obliterate the value of his services, nor does it require Plaintiffs to be compensated for his time at anything less than its full market value. See Jordan v. Department of Justice, 691 F.2d 514, 523-524 (D.C.Cir.1982) (legal services performed by unpaid law students are compensated at the full market value of those services). Feldman’s apparent litigation experience, combined with his independent knowledge of Defendant’s employment practices (acquired by virtue of his union client’s former representation of Defendant’s cabin attendants) made it eminently reasonable for Gottesman to solicit his participation and assistance in the case. There is no suggestion or indication that Feldman’s services were superfluous, and Plaintiffs accordingly are entitled to compensation for 160.5 hours of his time. C. Allocation of Tasks Between Partners, Associates and Paralegals Defendant contends that many tasks in this lawsuit “that could have been completed competently by an associate or paralegal were performed by attorneys seeking partner level compensation.” NWA Submission at 56. As a consequence, Defendant asserts that the allocation of tasks in the litigation was “highly inefficient” and asks this Court to award fees based solely on the level of experience necessary to perform the services. Defendant does not challenge the number of hours expended; it suggests only that they be redistributed among the various levels of personnel and compensated at commensurately lower hourly rates. Defendant’s argument — including the opinion of its “efficiency expert” — is predicated on the erroneous assumption that there is a single, correct staffing pattern for every lawsuit, viz., that plaintiffs’ counsel have an obligation to perform legal work in a minimally competent way. This Court finds no support for this approach in either the case law in this Circuit, the interest of the attorneys’ clients, or the goal which Defendant’s methodology purports to serve: the efficient conduct of litigation. Indeed, depositions of several attorneys that were taken in connection with this fee litigation demonstrate that there are circumstances in which it is more efficient for partners to perform such tasks as research, drafting, and compilation of trial exhibits, than to assign the performance of these tasks to associates working under partners’ supervision. This Court concludes that the allocation of responsibility between partners, associates and paralegals with respect to most tasks is a function of many variables and that there is no uniform approach that applies in all instances. “It is an inherent part of an attorney’s task to determine what types of expertise should be brought to bear on a legal problem,” Connors v. Drivers, Chauffeurs & Helpers Local Union 639, C.A. 82-1840, slip op. at 15, (D.D.C. March 4, 1983) and “[a]bsent a clear misallocation of resources, this Court is unwilling to second-guess counsel’s judgment.” Id This does not mean, however, that the Court will not exercise any oversight of counsels’ staffing decisions. Although “plaintiffs are not required to assign, to any given task, the minimum amount of legal skill capable of accomplishing it .... time spent by attorneys on non-legal work — e.g. filing information, computing statistics, etc. —is not properly compensable at attorney’s rates.” Ruiz v. Estelle, 553 F.Supp. 567, 588 (S.D.Tex.1982) (emphasis added). The Court has reviewed the time summaries for each of the attorneys and concludes that a total of 35.55 hours were devoted to non-legal tasks. These hours shall be compensated, as Defendant suggests, at the paralegal hourly rate of $30. All other hours, including those spent by attorneys in transit in connection with legal matters, shall be compensated at the attorneys’ hourly rates established infra. D. Attorney Fee Litigation Plaintiffs have requested compensation for 2,579 hours their counsel invested in the negotiation and litigation of the attorneys’ fee award. They assert that this enormous expenditure of time was necessitated by (1) the complexity of the fee application; (2) the Concerned Veterans requirement for extensive, detailed documentation; and (3) “the stubbornness with which NWA has fought the fee issue, its heavy discovery demands on plaintiffs, its resistance to any discovery by plaintiffs on the fee issue, and the length and breadth of its own submission in response to the fee application.” Plaintiffs’ Reply Brief at 59. Defendant does not challenge the principle that time reasonably expended by both Bredhoff & Kaiser and Arnold & Porter pursuing the fee request is compensable, but vigorously opposes an investment of over 2,500 attorney hours as extravagant, excessive and — especially where the entitlement to a fee is not in dispute — utterly unreasonable. In addition, Defendant identifies three categories of counsels’ endeavor that it contends are entirely noncompensable: time spent preparing and compiling affidavits in support of the fee application; time spent on conferences between Bredhoff & Kaiser and Arnold & Porter attorneys in connection with the fee negotiations and litigation; and time spent on discovery directed to the fee issue. The Court addresses each of Defendant’s contentions separately below. 1. The Affidavits The record Plaintiffs amassed to document their fee request includes thirty-six affidavits. Two of the documents were prepared by Michael Gottesman, Plaintiffs’ principal counsel on the merits, and another three by Daniel Rezneck, principal counsel on the fee petition; most of the remaining affidavits were culled from an impressive array of legal personages. Plaintiffs assert that this barrage of affidavits is necessary in order to carry their “heavy burden” to document each element of the fee claim. Defendant asserts that the entire compendium of affidavits is superfluous, since this Court can glean enough information from its knowledge of the case and first-hand observation of counsel and from attorney affidavits placed in the public record in other fee applications to assess the reasonableness of the fee. Defendant urges that approximately 130 hours devoted to the affidavits be excluded from Plaintiffs’ compensable hours. Michael Gottesman spent 191.25 hours preparing a detailed affidavit reciting, inter alia, the history of the litigation, the legal and factual problems posed by the case, and his assessment of the risks associated with the action. Defendant objects to underwriting “counsel’s memoirs” on the ground that “[t]he Court, which has presided over this litigation from its commencement, surely needed no discursive recapitulation of the proceedings.” NWA Submission at 97. To the extent that the affidavit contains arguments that were incorporated into the fee application, Defendant contends that the affidavit was “completely unnecessary and unwarranted.” This Court cannot accept Defendant’s contention that Gottesman’s affidavit was no more than a self-serving, auto-biographical exercise. The Court of Appeals implicitly has acknowledged the usefulness of affidavits from counsel. See Environmental Defense Fund v. Environmental Protection Agency, 672 F.2d 42, 54 (D.C.Cir. 1982). Indeed, given plaintiffs’ “heavy obligation to present well-documented claims,” Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1323-24, and, in particular, to set forth the specific aspects of the case that justify the lodestar adjustments they seek, id. at 1328-29, such affidavits may well be an indispensable component of many fee applications. It is true, of course, that this Court has developed considerable familiarity with this case during the past thirteen years and that this knowledge is useful in assessing the fee request. See Copeland, 641 F.2d at 893, n. 24 and 901. See also Hensley v. Eckerhart, -U.S. at-, 103 S.Ct. at 1942. However, the Court’s experience and memory do not substitute for a carefully prepared, fully documented fee request. It can be presumed that, in nearly every action, the judge presiding over the fee application shepherded the case through its earlier stages and is acquainted with counsel and the course of the litigation. If the Court of Appeals had intended the Court’s first-hand observation to substitute for a well-documented fee application, it would not have stressed repeatedly the necessity for Plaintiffs to produce specific evidence in support of the various elements of the fee award. The Court acknowledges that Gottesman’s affidavit is lengthy but finds no fault in this. The following passage from Cope-la nd is particularly apt: This chronicle is necessarily lengthy because the lawsuit involved numerous and complex proceedings and maneuverings.... [T]he very intricacy of the litigation — which was a product, in part, of the [defendant’s] vigorous and long-continued resistance to the claim asserted against it — is highly relevant to the reasonableness of the fee award. 641 F.2d at 884. The Court declines to omit any of the hours devoted to Gottesman’s affidavits from the compensable total. The Court reaches a different conclusion, however, as to the other supporting affidavits appended to Plaintiffs’ fee application. It is impossible to single out particular affidavits as superfluous or duplicative. Cf. Copeland, 641 F.2d at 903. But after reviewing Plaintiffs’ copious submissions, the Court is left with the firm impression that, in their eagerness to compile a thorough application, Plaintiffs’ counsel have indulged in some “litigious overkill.” This Court does not suggest that fee applicants must document their requests at the most minimally acceptable level. The Court only concludes that the record before it clearly is far more extensive than is necessary or desirable, even for a fee request of this magnitude. Defendants must compensate Plaintiffs for their counsels’ efforts in litigating the attorneys’ fee, but they do not have to pay for unreasonable or excessive endeavor. Accordingly, 72.25 attorney hours will be subtracted from Plaintiff’s proposed lodestar totals, as follows: Bredhoff 1.25 hrs. (at $175/hr.) Gottesman 8.5 hrs. (at $175/hr.) Weinberg 6.0 hrs. (at $150/hr.) Brudney .5 hr. (at $100/hr.) Rezneck 40.00 hrs. (at $175/hr.) Burt 6.0 hrs. (at $150/hr.) Lindon 10.0 hrs. (at $ 75/hr.) 2. Inter-firm Meetings Defendant challenges Plaintiffs’ request for compensation for approximately 245 hours that lawyers from Bredhoff & Kaiser and Arnold & Porter spent in conference with one another. Defendant pronounces the conference time a “staggering” sum and argues that, because it was necessitated solely by Bredhoff & Kaiser’s decision to retain separate counsel to prosecute their fee claim, none of the offending hours are compensable. The Court declines to pass judgment on the propriety of Bredhoff & Kaiser’s decision to retain separate fee counsel; it leaves to counsel the professional judgment as to how its fee application is most effectively prepared. Counsel is not free, however, to exercise its judgment in a fashion that unnecessarily inflates the losing party’s fee liability, e.g. by injecting an additional layer of attorneys into the case. Thus, hours that would not have been expended by an attorney (or law firm) prosecuting its own petition for fees cannot be charged to its opponent when separate counsel is brought into the case to pursue the fee award. Such hours are not “reasonably necessary to obtaining a fee award” and are properly disallowed. See Shadis v. Beal, 703 F.2d 71 at 73 (3d Cir.1983). The Court, however, does not adopt Defendant’s suggestion that all hours devoted to inter-firm meetings be eliminated from the compensable total. If Bredhoff & Kaiser had prepared the fee petition itself, its own attorneys would have committed considerable time to intra-firm conferences to plot their application strategy and to allocate tasks; such expenditures of time would be neither startling nor improper. The Court therefore has estimated the amount of time such conferences would have consumed and subtracts all hours in excess of that amount from Plaintiffs’ lodestar figures, as follows: Rezneck 60.0 hrs. Burt 15.0 hrs. Lindon ' 50.0 hrs. 3. Attorney Fee Discovery Defendant asks the Court to deny compensation for all hours devoted to discovery in connection with the attorney fee application. The disputed time includes 307.875 hours spent on “offensive” discovery requests (i.e., discovery sought by Plaintiffs from Defendant) and 389.5 hours spent on “defensive” discovery (i.e., Plaintiffs’ responses to Defendant’s discovery requests and motions). Defendant contends (1) that it was an unwilling participant in the pre-application discovery; (2) that none of the information requested of it was “really necessary for preparation of the fee application,” and (3) that the information Plaintiffs’ counsel gathered in “defensive” discovery was equally unnecessary. The Court finds Defendant’s arguments almost wholly without merit. The discovery to which Defendant objects occurred as a result of a stipulation between the parties. See Stipulation and Order Regarding Scheduling, December 1, 1982. Defendant joined with Plaintiffs in presenting the Court with an agreed-upon schedule for pre-application discovery. Defendant was under no obligation to enter into the agreement, and the Court approved the proposed schedule without protest from Defendant. Thereafter, Defendant fully participated in the discovery process, requested and obtained substantial information from Plaintiffs, and incorporated the material in its opposition to the fee application. The Court is astounded that Defendant now suggests the discovery was wholly unnecessary — including its own discovery requests! — and completely uncompensable. Defendant’s position is even more unfathomable in light of its suggestion (in connection with a dispute that arose during the now-discredited discovery) that Plaintiffs had an obligation to collect that information, separate and apart from any discovery requests, to “document” their fee application. Reply Memorandum in Support of Defendant’s Motion to Compel, January 26,1988 at 3. If the information collected and provided Defendant during the discovery process was necessary for Plaintiffs’ fee application, the reasonable time spent assembling it is fully compensable. With regard to the “offensive” discovery, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs’ discovery requests — although broad — were not frivolous, but were bona fide efforts to advance Plaintiffs’ legitimate litigation interests. The time devoted to them is also compensable. The Court acknowledges that the mutual pre-application discovery did not prove to be as helpful as it had hoped; for example, it does not appear to have eliminated (or even appreciably narrowed) the areas of controversy in the fee application. Nevertheless, the parties embarked on the discovery in good faith, with the full approval of the Court, and they are entitled to compensation for the hours they reasonably devoted to the task. 4. Reasonable Hours Apart from the disputed hours devoted to the tasks addressed supra, Defendant asserts that preparation of Plaintiffs’ fee application was characterized by “massive overkill,” “inefficiency,” and “extraordinary duplication of effort.” Defendant attributes these flaws largely to Bredhoff & Kaiser’s decision to retain separate counsel to pursue the attorneys’ fee and contends that any hours expended by outside counsel beyond those that would have been required of counsel to prepare its own fee petition cannot be shifted to Defendant. Defendant proposes reducing by one-half the hours spent drafting and editing the fee applications in order to compensate for counsels’ “inefficiency.” Plaintiffs acknowledge that some duplication of effort may have been caused by securing new counsel for the fee application, but note that they eliminated approximately 200 attorney hours from the fee request to account for that possibility. Although Plaintiffs’ counsel dedicated more time to preparing the fee application than this Court can countenance, it does not appear that they were as wide of the mark as Defendant suggests. This litigation encompassed thirteen years, thousands of personnel hours, and thousands of dollars of out-of-pocket expenditures. Given the extensive documentation requirements in this Circuit, it was inevitable that the application would entail a substantial commitment of time. Defendant’s unyielding stance only increased the hours necessary to litigate the fee request. This Court does not fault Defendant for defending itself tenaciously but finds that, having vigorously contested the attorneys’ fee issue, it is scarcely in a position to complain that Plaintiffs responded in kind. See Copeland, 641 F.2d at 904 and n. 53. Nevertheless, the Court has reviewed the time records that detail the attorney hours spent litigating the fee request (as well as the resulting written submissions) and concludes that the following hours were unnecessary, duplicative, or otherwise unreasonably spent: Bredhoff 1.25 hrs. Cohen 2.00 hrs. Gottesman 60.00 hrs. Weinberg 57.25 hrs. P. Clark 2.25 hrs. Brudney 10.00 hrs. (at $75/hr.) Rezneck 39.125 hrs. Burt 22.00 hrs. Lindon 72.125 hrs. E. Total Compensable Hours The following table indicates the total number of hours for which compensation shall be awarded. Merit Hours Attorney Fee Hours Bredhoff 10.75 Feldman 160.5 Cohen 42.5 12.00 Gottesman 5,471.45 596.25 Weinberg 1.116.25 357.875 Petramalo 373.375 2.0 D. Clark 2.454.25 P. Clark 698.25 12.125 Collins 817.0 10.5 Gilson 53 2.625 Brudney 76.375 63.125 Rezneck 371.875 Burt 116.00 Lindon 556.125 III. The Reasonable Hourly Rate The second step — and the “key issue” — in establishing the lodestar is to determine the reasonable hourly rate “prevailing in the community for similar work.” Copeland, 641 F.2d at 892; Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1324. The hourly rate generally depends upon the attorneys’ experience and reputation, the type of work involved, and the level of skill necessary to conduct the case. Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1325. Other relevant considerations include the time limitations imposed by the case, the amount to be obtained in the litigation, and the undesirability of the case. Copeland, 641 F.2d at 892; EDF v. EPA, 672 F:2d at 58. Although the complexity of the market for legal services and the diversity of attorneys’ billing techniques complicate the inquiry, a court must ascertain the prevailing hourly rate “with a fair degree of accuracy.” Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1325. A fee applicant therefore must provide “specific evidence of the prevailing community rate for the type of work for which he seeks an award.” Id. Plaintiffs propose the following matrix of hourly rates for lawyers of differing levels of experience: —$175 an hour for very experienced federal court litigators, i.e., lawyers in their 20th year or more after graduation from law school; —$150 an hour for experienced federal court litigators in their 11th through 19th years after law school graduation; —$125 an hour for experienced federal court litigators in their 8th through 10th years after graduation from law school; —$100 an hour for senior associates, i.e., 4 to 7 years after graduation from law school; and —$75 an hour for junior associates, i.e., 1 to 3 years after law school graduation. They support their request with a barrage of data, including twenty-five attorney affidavits secured specifically for this litigation, information gleaned from affidavits filed in other cases, and fee data reflected in previous judicial decisions. Plaintiffs contend that this documentation establishes that (1) these are the prevailing rates in the community for lawyers of comparable skill, expertise and reputation in complex federal litigation and (2) the prevailing community practice is to charge fee-paying clients in employment discrimination cases the same rates that apply to other complex federal litigation. Defendant does not dispute the high quality of legal services rendered in this case; indeed, it acknowledges counsels’ “prominence and ability” and concedes that Bredhoff & Kaiser is “one of the ‘premier’ employment discrimination firms in the country.” Defendant also does not challenge Plaintiffs’ proposed matrix as an accurate depiction of the prevailing market rates for lawyers of comparable skill and ability who represent defendants in complex Title VII cases. Finally, Defendant acknowledges that the rates Plaintiffs’ counsel charge fee-paying clients are not a function of the intrinsic value of the firm’s legal services but rather of the particular clients the firm chooses to represent and their ability to pay. Despite this seemingly broad accord, Defendant vigorously objects to the hourly rates set forth in Plaintiffs’ application. The focus of Defendant’s opposition is the fact that the rates Plaintiffs seek are higher than any hourly rate at which their counsel has ever billed its regular fee-paying clients. For purposes of a court-awarded fee, Defendant contends there is a distinction — purportedly fashioned in Cope-la nd — between private lawyers with regular fee-paying clients and “public interest” lawyers who toil at modest salaries for nonprofit legal defense funds or charitable organizations. According to Defendant’s scheme, attorneys in the former category receive only the regular hourly rates charged to their fee-paying clients; there is no need to look beyond those rates or to “construct” a market rate, since “the market has already placed a value on the firm’s services” in the form of its regular hourly rates. Public interest lawyers, however, have no billing practice, and the Court therefore must construct a hypothetical market value for their services based upon the prevailing market rate. On the basis of this dichotomy, Defendant asserts that Plaintiffs’ counsel should be awarded no more than the regular hourly rates they charge their fee-paying clients. The approach Defendant outlines finds no support either in logic or in the case law in this jurisdiction; in fact, adherence to Defendant’s methodology would require a wholesale repudiation of the principles enunciated in Copeland. This Court has neither the authority nor the inclination to embark on such a path. Although an attorney’s actual billing rate is “highly relevant proof of the prevailing community rate,” Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1326, it is clear that a court’s fee setting inquiry does not begin and end with counsels’ monthly billing statements. The Court of Appeals has indicated on numerous occasions that lawyers may receive court-awarded fees based upon rates that differ from those they normally command and has placed its imprimatur on awards far in excess of an attorney’s salary or hourly rates. This result is not undesirable, but is a natural consequence of the Court of Appeals’ decision to base attorney fee awards on the prevailing rate in the community for similar legal services: [F]ee allowances are basically to be measured by the market value of the services rendered, not the amount actually received by the attorney nor the amount that would have been received absent an award of fees. Jordan v. Department of Justice, 691 F.2d at 523-524 (footnotes omitted). There is no room in this “market value” approach for the distinction Defendant attempts to create here. The Court of Appeals noted specifically in Copeland that computing fees “differently depending on the identity of the successful plaintiffs’ attorney” — i.e., whether counsel was a public interest firm or a private attorney — would produce results that are inconsistent with the legislative scheme of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: The incentive to employers not to discriminate is reduced if diminished fee awards are assessed when discrimination is established. Moreover, where a public interest law firm serves as plaintiff’s counsel (a law firm that ... will not obtain the full value of its services from the losing defendant) the defendant will be subject to a lesser incentive to settle a suit without litigation than would be the case if a high-priced private firm undertook plaintiff’s representation. 641 F.2d at 899 (emphasis added). This reasoning applies equally to lawyers in private firms (such as Plaintiffs’ counsel) who scale their rates according to their clients’ ability to pay and lawyers in nonprofit public interest organizations, whose rates are similarly (albeit more drastically) reduced to reflect the financial constraints of their clientele. The issue is not whether counsel is a “true” public interest firm that represents its clients “for low fees or for no fee at all.” The question is whether the attorneys’ regular rates reflect the actual market value of their services. Thus, where counsels’ customary fees are not “low” in an absolute sense but are nevertheless below those that prevail in the market for similar services, a court contemplating a fee award is not limited to counsels’ historic fees but must frame an award that reflects the true value of the services rendered. To be sure,' the evidence presented to the court to establish the prevailing rate may vary according to the nature of counsels’ practice. Thus, attorneys who have a regular billing practice submit evidence of their average hourly rates, since this data constitutes “important substantiating evidence of the prevailing community rate.” Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1326 (footnote omitted). On the other hand, attorneys who do not receive fees or who have no regular billing practice (e.g., they depend upon court-awarded fees for the bulk of their remuneration) need not submit evidence of either their hourly rates or their salaries. Id. at n. 7a. In each instance, however, the underlying factual inquiry is the same: “The court .. . must ultimately determine, on the evidence before it, the rate prevailing in the community for similar legal work.” Jordan v. Department of Justice, 691 F.2d at 521. Defendant maintains, however, that compensating counsel at rates above their regular, established fees is inconsistent with the policies underlying fee-shifting statutes. It correctly observes that one of the purposes of Title VII fee awards is to provide an incentive for competent lawyers to undertake Title VII work by assuring them of adequate compensation for their efforts. Copeland 641 F.2d at 890. Defendant contends that awarding attorneys their regular hourly rates (adjusted to current value) is sufficient economic incentive for them to accept Title VII cases; indeed, it cautions that awarding fees in excess of counsels’ customary rates would over-compensate their efforts and bestow on plaintiffs a wind-fall at defendants’ expense. This argument was raised and soundly rejected in Copeland. After repudiating a “cost-plus” fee-setting methodology in favor of a market value approach, the en banc Court acknowledged that “paying low-salaried attorneys the prevailing market rate normally will yield a larger fee than that to which they are accustomed.” 641 F.2d at 899. The Court concluded, however, that this result was not inappropriate since payment of “full fees” under the market value methodology was not only consistent with Congress’ intent but would provide greater incentives to the private enforcement of Title VII. Indeed, the Court observed that “computing] fees differently depending on the identity of the successful plaintiff’s attorney might result in ... windfalls to defendants.” Id. This rationale retains its vitality whether plaintiff’s counsel is a public interest law firm in the traditional sense or a private fee-charging firm whose customary rates — for whatever reason — do not reflect the full value of its services. The approach mandated by Copeland— and the approach this Court fully intends to follow — ensures that, regardless of the nature of the law firm representing plaintiff, counsel will be compensated at rates that accurately reflect the full market value of their counsels’ services. The Court finds that the relevant legal market in this action is complex employment discrimination litigation and that this market is subject to the same hourly rates that prevail in other complex federal litigation. The Court rejects Defendant’s suggestion that there are separate markets (and therefore separate prevailing rates) for the defense and prosecution of Title VII actions. The inquiry mandated by Cope-la nd and its progeny focuses on the type of work performed, not on the identity of the client. The skill required to litigate a complex employment discrimination action does not vary with the attorneys’ client, for each side litigates the same issues and grapples with the same underlying facts. The Court also rejects Defendant’s suggestion that, because Plaintiffs’ counsel is a “union-oriented labor law firm,” its rates for litigating this action should be determined by the market for legal services “in the recognized ‘labor law’ specialty.” NWA Submission at 20-21. The Court reiterates that the appropriate benchmark for a fee award is the prevailing rate for “the type of work for which [the fee applicant] seeks an award,” 675 F.2d at 1325, not the type of work it usually performs. Defendant’s comparison of counsels’ actual hourly rates with the rates of other labor law firms of similar size simply misses the mark. The Court finds further that the hourly rates proposed by Plaintiffs are within the range of rates that prevail in the Washington, D.C. area for lawyers of comparable qualifications who handle cases of this sort. The Court acknowledges that these rates are generous. However, Plaintiffs have submitted a host of affidavits attesting to the extraordinary experience and expertise of Plaintiffs’ counsel in this field; these affidavits only confirm what this Court observed firsthand during the course of this lengthy litigation. Plaintiffs also submitted affidavits indicating that lawyers with comparable qualifications and expertise actually bill their clients — and receive remuneration — in cases of this sort at rates that are similar to (and, in some instances, higher than) the hourly rates Plaintiffs propose. In short, the Court concludes that the record in this action contains ample evidence that the rates Plaintiffs request are those that prevail in the community for similar work. Defendant made no effort to produce “specific contrary evidence” that these rates are erroneous. See Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1326. The lodestar rates therefore are as follows: Attorney Hourly Rates/ Years Worked BREDHOFF & KAISER: Bredhoff $175 (1981 - Present) Feldman $100 (1972) Cohen $150 (1970 - May 31,1976) $175 (June 1,1976 - Present) Gottesman $150 (1970 - May 31,1978) $175 (June 1,1976 - Present) Weinberg $100 (January 1 - May 31, 1975) $125 (June 1,1975-May31,1978) $150 (June 1,1978-Present) Petramalo $100 (1974 - May 31,1976) $125 (June 1,1976-May 31,1979) $150 (June 1,1979 - Present) D. Clark $ 75 (1970 - May 31,1973) $100 (June 1,1973 - 1975) P. Clark $100 (1977 - May 31,1975) $125 (1977 - May 31,1980) Collins $ 75 (1977 - May 31,1979) $100 (June 1,1979 - Present) Gilson $100 (1980 - Present) Attorney Hourly Rates/ Years Worked Brudney $ 75 (1981 - May 31,1982) $100 (June 1,1982 - Present) ARNOLD & PORTER Rezneck $175 Burt $150 Lindon $ 75 The Court finds no merit in Defendant’s suggestion that Plaintiffs receive only 70% of the lodestar rates for time spent negotiating and litigating the attorneys’ fee. There is no evidence that attorneys typically charge their clients a reduced hourly rate when they litigate an award of attorney fees on their behalf. Moreover, there is virtually no support in the case law for such a result. The Court of Appeals has awarded fees to counsel who represented plaintiffs on the fee issue at the same lodestar rates awarded to plaintiffs’ counsel on the merits. E.g., EDF v. EPA, 672 F.2d at 64. Any other result might create an incentive for defendants to over-litigate the attorney fee issue. Cf. Copeland, 641 F.2d at 899. Plaintiffs’ counsel shall be compensated for their work on the attorneys’ fee at the same rates awarded on the merits. IV. Increases to the Lodestar The second major point of contention in this fee application is Plaintiffs’ request for an increase in the lodestar to account for the contingent nature of success, the delay in receipt of payment, and the allegedly exceptional quality of the representation. Plaintiffs assert that [t]his is an extraordinary and exceptional case in every respect — in duration, scope, complexity, difficulty, novelty, importance, vigor and intensity of litigation, risks assumed, results obtained, quality of legal services provided to the plaintiffs, and significant public policies at stake and that it is therefore deserving of an upward adjustment of “at least” 200. Defendant, on the other hand variously describes Plaintiffs’ proposed adjustment as “grossly excessive,” “aberrationally large,” and a product of “convoluted methodology” that is totally at odds with the case law in this Circuit. The Court concludes that, as is frequently the case, the proper path lies somewhere between the two extremes. The Court begins with the familiar proposition that, although the lodestar generally compensates lawyers adequately for their time, Copeland, 641 F.2d at 894, it may be adjusted upward (or, in an appropriate case, downward) to reflect a number of factors peculiar to the lawsuit. The Court of Appeals has identified two broad categories of adjustments that may be made: (1) “contingency” adjustments: compensation for the risk of not prevailing and thus not recovering a fee, and compensation for the delay in payment of fees and (2) “quality” adjustments: compensation for unusually good representation and compensation for securing exceptional results. Copeland, 641 F.2d at 892-894; Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1328-1329. Lodestar adjustments are not “bonuses” or “rewards” in excess of an attorney’s deserved compensation, but are an “attempt to calculate more precisely the market value of the services provided by the attorney.” Alabama Power Company v. Gorsuch, 672 F.2d 1, 6 n. 28 (D.C.Cir.1982). Plaintiffs, of course, bear the burden of justifying the increases they seek by identifying clearly the particular circumstances of the case that warrant the proposed adjustments. Copeland, 641 F.2d at 892; Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1328. A. Quality of Representation Two distinct factors may justify an increase in the lodestar to reflect the quality of representation afforded the prevailing plaintiff: An upward adjustment for quality is appropriate when the attorney (1) performed exceptionally well or (2) obtained an exceptional result. Copeland, 641 F.2d at 894. It is clear, however, that quality adjustments are not granted routinely or liberally, but are reserved for truly exceptional cases. Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1329; Donnell v. United States, 682 F.2d 240, 254 (D.C.Cir.1982), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 1190, 75 L.Ed.2d 436 (1983). An adjustment is not merited simply because counsel competently pursued the litigation to a successful conclusion, 682 F.2d at 255, or obtained an enormous dollar recovery, 641 F.2d at 894, but is appropriate only in the rare instances where an attorney’s performance is not accurately reflected in the lodestar calculation. Thus, [a] quality adjustment is appropriate only when the representation is unusually good or bad, taking Into account the level of skill normally expected of an attorney commanding the hourly rate used to compute the “lodestar.” Copeland, 641 F.2d at 893. Similarly, an adjustment for exceptional results is merited only where, taking into account the hourly rate commanded and the number of hours expended, the results are substantially better than could reasonably have been expected. Copeland, 641 F.2d at 894; Donnell, 682 F.2d at 255 n. 51. When viewed in light of these standards, Plaintiffs’ request for a 100% quality adjustment does not withstand scrutiny. Every individual involved in or familiar with this lawsuit acknowledges that Plaintiffs’ counsel are first-rate lawyers. They are extremely experienced, extraordinarily capable attorneys who provided Plaintiffs with legal representation of the highest caliber. For these reasons, Plaintiffs requested and have been awarded compensation at hourly rates commensurate with the most experienced, highly respected, and capable attorneys in the District of Columbia. And for that reason, no additional increase to compensate for the quality of counsels’ performance is warranted. Plaintiffs’ counsel clearly performed with distinction, but that is no more than the Court or Plaintiffs would demand of counsel earning up to $175 per hour. Counsels’ legal acumen and impressive performance in this case are “precisely what one would expect from an attorney particularly experienced in this field serving as a party’s lead counsel in a complex litigation,” Donnell, 682 F.2d at 255, and are fully accounted for in the lodestar rates. The results obtained in this case also are consistent with the caliber of representation provided by counsel and the number of hours devoted to the case. This Court is reluctant to endorse Plaintiffs’ claim that its counsel “conducted the litigation of this case in remarkably efficient fashion,” devoting fewer attorney hours to the case than might be expected from the complexity and magnitude of the tasks. Assuming, however, that counsel did litigate this action in fewer hours than most attorneys would have required, that probably is attributable largely to counsels’ decision to utilize the talents of its more knowledgeable, experienced partners for the bulk of the tasks. The Court has indicated already that this allocation of resources was not unreasonable, and it does not mean to intimate otherwise here. The Court notes only that, taking into account the generous hourly rates awarded for over 13,300 hours of counsels’ time, the favorable result in this litigation was not truly exceptional. The Court’s conclusion that no quality adjustment to the lodestar is appropriate is not intended to impugn the quality of counsels’ legal services or to denigrate the doctrinal or practical significance of this lawsuit. The case was an important one which furthered the goals of both Title VII and the Equal Pay Act; it simply was not “exceptional” as that term has been defined by the Court of Appeals in this Circuit. See Donnell, 682 F.2d at 255 n. 51. B. The “Risk Premium” ■ Where a prevailing plaintiff’s counsel litigates Title VII claims on the understanding that it will receive no significant remuneration unless the lawsuit is successful, an upward adjustment in the lodestar is appropriate “to compensate for the risk that the lawsuit would be unsuccessful and that no fee at all would be obtained.” Copeland, 641 F.2d at 892. The “contingency adjustment” or “risk premium” is a percentage increase in the lodestar and “is designed solely to compensate for the possibility at the outset that the litigation would be unsuccessful and that no fee would be obtained.” Id. at 893 (emphasis added). Although the inquiry is “difficult in hindsight,” id., the Court must assess the “actual probability” that the fee applicant would have lost the case and recovered no fee. Donnell, 682 F.2d at 254 n. 43. There is no dispute here that counsels’ receipt of fees depended upon the successful termination of the litigation and that Plaintiffs therefore are entitled to a risk adjustment. See Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1328. It remains only for the Court to ascertain the amount of the “risk premium” that should be awarded. Although this task is “inherently imprecise” and necessarily entails “certain estimations,” Copeland, 641 F.2d at 893, it is incumbent upon Plaintiffs to “identify the specific circumstances of the case which support a risk adjustment in the amount requested.” Concerned Veterans, 675 F.2d at 1328. In order to assess the risk that Plaintiffs’ counsel accepted at the outset of this litigation, the Court must consider not only the probability of success but what was being risked. The former category requires an evaluation of (1) the legal and factual complexity of the case; (2) the probability of defendant’s liability, including whether it has been suggested by previous proceedings and whether it is asserted under existing case law or is advanced as a novel theory; and (3) the difficulty or ease with which damages (if any) could be proven. See Lindy Brothers Builders, Inc. v. American Radiator & Standard Sanitary Corp. (Lindy II), 540 F.2d 102, 117 (3d Cir. 1976). The latter category includes the number of hours and the amount of out-of-pocket expenses risked without guarantee of compensation. Id. The Court’s review of these factors, in light of the documentation incorporated in Plaintiffs’ fee application and the Court’s own intimate familiarity with the litigation, suggests that a risk adjustment of 100 percent is appropriate. When Plaintiffs’ counsel agreed to undertake this lawsuit thirteen years ago, they did so with the understanding that they would not be compensated for their labor unless they ultimately prevailed on the merits and that, in any event, they would receive no payment until the case was concluded. They had every reason to anticipate then that the case would require a substantial investment (both in time and out-of-pocket expenditures) over an extended period. The case was contemplated as a class action on behalf of over 3,300 flight attendants; the alleged statutory violations touched virtually every aspect of Defendant’s employment practices and raised a multitude of legal and factual issues; and the outcome of these issues was far from preordained. No prior government or private proceeding had suggested Defendant’s liability or had even developed the facts of the case; Plaintiffs’ counsel had to conduct their own extensive investigation and discovery, and they simply could not know at the outset of their representation how the critical facts would develop. See Lindy II, 540 F.2d at 117. Moreover, the case was brought at an early stage in the development of the law under Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. There were few significant legal precedents interpreting either of the statutes and none from the United States Supreme Court. Thus, Plaintiffs’ counsel could not know or reliably predict what the controlling standards would be. Finally, Plaintiffs knew they were facing a large, well-financed corporate defendant with a policy and history of tenaciously defending cases brought against it. This fact, combined with the unsettled state of the law, presaged a protracted battle in both the trial and appellate courts. And Plaintiffs’ counsel knew at the outset that the battle would be waged on Defendant’s