Desegregation lawyers seek $545,000 in fees, costs

Attorneys for Black students in a long-running school desegregation lawsuit are asking a federal judge to award them almost $545,000 in fees and costs from the Pulaski County Special School District after fee talks between the parties broke down.

The attorneys for the McClendon intervenors are seeking reimbursement of fees for three lawyers and three desegregation monitors for the work done in recent years — including a three-week court hearing in 2020 — in the 38-year-old Pulaski County federal school desegregation lawsuit.

Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., the presiding judge in the case, ruled in May that the 12,000-student Pulaski County Special district had substantially complied with its desegregation obligations and was entitled to unitary status — meaning release from court supervision — in all areas except resolving inequities among school buildings.

The issue of how to square up the Mills University Studies High School campus with the Robinson Middle School campus is pending before the judge at the same time as the fee issue.

“The parties have engaged in negotiations, but have not been able to come to an agreement to be awarded the intervenors for attorney’s fees and other costs herein expended for the defense of the consent decree (Plan 2000),” wrote attorneys Austin Porter Jr., Robert Pressman and Joyce Raynor Carr. Carr represents the John W. Walker law firm. Walker died in October 2019.

“Counsel for the intervenors submitted a reasonable amount for attorney’s fees and costs, which is substantially less than the amount that is being presented in this motion, but said amount was rejected

by the Pulaski County Special School District, as advised by its counsel by letter dated September 15, 2021,” the attorney team told Marshall last week.

Devin Bates, an attorney for the school district, told the School Board at that Wednesday meeting that the intervenors initially asked for $600,000 but offered to discount that by 20%. The district countered with a proposed 30% discount with conditions that would allow monthly payments over a year and a commitment that the intervenors would not ask for additional fees later.

The intervenors countered that with an offer of 25% discount off the original $600,000 and one flat payment. The School Board on the recommendation of Superintendent Charles McNulty rejected that offer at its meeting Wednesday and opted to let the judge decide the amount.

Bates told the board that it is unlikely the judge would award the intervenors’ full request, but he that anticipated a payment of some amount would be ordered.

The McClendon attorneys argued to the judge in documents filed Wednesday that the intervenors had to get involved in the long-running case and participate in every stage of it to protect the rights of Black students.

“It took the efforts of the intervenors to get a constitutional violator to come into compliance; to do what it should have a long time ago,” the McClendon attorneys wrote in asking for payment of fees and costs.

“In the case at bar … intervenors played a vital role in getting the Pulaski County Special School District to the point of almost unitary status, with the remaining issue of facilities to be completed. Intervenors have continued to work with the PCSSD in getting the inequities that exist with the Mills High School project as compared to Robinson Middle School. Intervenors acted like an agitator in a washing machine. Without the agitator, clothes cannot become clean.”

The McClendon attorneys’ requested payment — dating back to 2017 — is made up of $402,013.50 for three lawyers for the intervenors, at rates of $350 an hour for Pressman and Porter, and $450 an hour for Walker. The request for the three desegregation monitors is $136,947.25 with Rep. Joy Springer, D-Little Rock, a monitor, to receive $116,041.75 of that. Her hourly rate is $137.50. Her monitoring colleagues are seeking a $70 an hour rate.

Expenses requested by the intervenors total $5,968.75.