Please explain what factors help determine whether paralegal/legal assistant fees are recoverable from the opposing party in litigation under a “loser pays” or fee-shifting mechanism.
What will be an ideal response?
Even if a statute expressly authorizes the recovery of paralegal/legal assistant fees, such fees
are not granted simply because they are requested. Courts tend to examine a variety of factors
in connection to the request in order to determine whether the fees are recoverable. Of the
common factors, the most important is that the work performed by the paralegal/legal
assistant needs to have been substantive legal work, the type lawyers would have done if
there were no paralegals/legal assistants available. Clerical or secretarial work is not the type
of work that qualifies as eligible for fee shifting or fee recovery. The other factors include the
following: The work must be properly supervised by a lawyer; the paralegal/legal assistant’s
qualifications must be clearly delineated; the work that was done must be specifically
detailed; the time spent on the work must be reasonable; and, the fees request must be
reasonable—that is, market rates for that given community.
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a. premium agreement. b. coinsurance clause. c. option clause. d. binder.
Subcultures unite a smaller subset of the organization's employees.
Answer the following statement true (T) or false (F)