As same-sex marriage bans continue to fall in the courts, states on the losing side of the battle are finding themselves on the hook for attorneys’ fees incurred by proponents of marriage equality, to the tune of more than $800,000 thus far, according to Zoe Tillman in this National Law Journal post.
And requests for millions more are still pending in cases making their way through the appellate courts, Tillman notes.
In the cases pending here, the requests themselves have been put on hold while appeals play out. State Senate President Phil Berger and former House Speaker Thom Tillis intervened in those cases to appeal district court judgments overturning the state’s same-sex marriage ban, following the Fourth Circuit’s ruling on a similar ban in Virginia in Bostic v. Schaeffer.
But several of the attorneys in the Bostic cases are recovering fees. Says Tillman:
After the Fourth Circuit declared Virginia’s marriage ban unconstitutional, officials reached fee agreements with the plaintiffs’ lawyers. Virginia will pay $60,000 to lawyers in Harris v. Rainey, a class action joined with another case, Bostic v. Rainey, on appeal. A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said the terms of an agreement with the Bostic lawyers were still being finalized.
In Harris, Jenner & Block worked with the ACLU of Virginia and Lambda Legal. Attorney fees will go to the nonprofit lawyers. In Bostic, Theodore Olson of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and David Boies of Boies, Schiller & Flexner were co-lead counsel. Olson argued in the Fourth Circuit. Representatives from Gibson Dunn and Boies Schiller declined to comment about fees.
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