QUESTIONS PRESENTED ON CERTIORARI

I. Whether, in assessing a reasonable hourly rate for counsel of a successful civil rights litigant under sec. 1988 of the Title 42, a district court may isolate the age of the lawyer and the number of other lawyers in the attorney’s firm as the sole variables in defining the comparable “market” for the attorney’s services, then further restrict that market to a single state for young lawyers in small firms and use only the 50th percentile rate from a two-year-old statewide survey for defining the “reasonable” rate within that “market.”

II. Whether the presumptive “market rate” for an attorney should be the actual hourly rate paid by actual billing clients, and whether, when the hourly rate for an attorney of actual billing clients is unknown or uncertain, the presumptive “market rate” for an attorney should be the hourly rate of attorneys in complex federal litigation in the city where the district court or appellate court sits, as appropriate.

III. Whether a fee award from a district court reversed on appeal on the merits of the litigation cuts the fees of the party successful in obtaining the appellate reversal is entitled to the same level of discretionary review.

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