It
does
not
happen
very
often
in
the
American
legal
system,
but
occasionally
in
a
lawsuit,
one
side
is
ordered
by
the
court
to
pay
at
least
a
portion
of
the
other
side’s
legal
fees.
I
still
remember
quite
clearly
the
first
time
I
got
an
attorneys’
fee
award
all
on
my
own.
It
was
a
discovery
motion,
and
in
addition
to
repeatedly
blowing
past
deadlines
and
failing
to
produce
a
bunch
of
the
material
we
were
asking
for,
the
lawyer
on
the
other
side
was
needlessly
a
huge
dick
about
every
single
little
thing
over
the
course
of
the
entire
case.
It
felt
really
good
to
get
that
check.
In
that
instance,
the
court
order
was
ambiguous
as
to
whether
the
opposing
lawyer
or
the
adverse
party
should
pay
the
fee
award.
The
check
came
directly
from
the
opposing
law
firm
(which
I
will
not
name
out
of
a
probably
misguided
sense
of
professional
courtesy,
even
though
I
should,
because
every
person
I
interacted
with
there
was
a
truly
awful
human
being).
The
name
on
the
check
does
not
necessarily
mean
this
law
firm
actually
paid
out-of-pocket
for
this
discovery
sanction,
however.
Law
firms
advance
costs
for
any
number
of
things
on
behalf
of
clients,
or
apply
part
of
a
retainer
deposit
to
upcoming
expenses,
all
the
time.
Clients
typically
have
no
idea
what
expenditures
should
or
should
not
be
their
responsibility
and
just
pay
for
whatever
their
lawyers
tell
them
they
need
to
pay
for
because
they
are
not
the
ones
who
are
experts
at
how
to
navigate
through
a
lawsuit.
Although
I
never
had
a
fee
award
levied
against
my
side
in
any
of
my
own
cases
as
a
procedural
sanction
(though
there
might
have
been
a
few
need-based
ones
in
family
law
cases
which
are
always
the
responsibility
of
the
client),
at
the
firm
where
I
worked,
I
saw
other
attorneys
foisting
fee
awards
onto
clients
that
probably
should
have
been
paid
by
the
firm
all
the
time.
Now,
it
is
entirely
possible
the
particular
lawyer
I
had
mostly
been
dealing
with
on
that
motion
to
compel
discovery
production
accepted
responsibility
for
the
sanction,
did
the
right
thing,
and
went
to
the
other
shareholders
at
his
firm
to
admit
that
this
had
been
his
fault
and
that
the
client
should
not
be
on
the
hook
for
the
attorneys’
fee
award.
I
sincerely
doubt
it
though,
given
his
repulsive
personality
and
the
way
that
I
have
seen
so
many
other
lawyers
behave
in
similar
situations.
It
is
conceivable
that
a
discovery
sanction
can
arise
through
no
fault
of
the
attorney
representing
a
particularly
obstinate
person
or
entity.
There
are
a
few
litigants
out
there
who
simply
refuse
to
produce
documents.
It
is
almost
always
the
lawyer’s
fault,
though,
when
there
is
a
fee
award
in
discovery,
either
through
pompous
overconfidence
in
the
solidity
of
one’s
own
legal
position
as
to
what
information
actually
needs
to
be
turned
over
or
through
negligence
in
failing
to
keep
the
client
well-appraised
of
the
approaching
deadlines
and
the
consequences
of
ignoring
them.
Beyond
discovery,
there
are
a
lot
of
other
reasons
why
a
court
might
shift
the
responsibility
to
pay
attorneys’
fees
from
one
side
in
a
case
to
the
other.
The
classic
example
is
a
Rule
11
violation.
To
summarize
Rule
11
for
the
nonlawyers
out
there,
Rule
11,
among
other
things,
gives
a
district
court
the
authority
to
impose
a
sanction
against
a
lawyer
or
party
who
unreasonably
presents
a
motion
for
improper
purposes
like
to
harass
the
other
side
or
to
needlessly
increase
litigation
costs.
It
also
allows
a
court
to
punish
a
lawyer
or
party
who
makes
frivolous
legal
arguments
or
totally
unsupported
factual
allegations.
While
Rule
11
does
prohibit
monetary
sanctions
on
a
represented
party
when
it
comes
to
the
provision
against
advancing
an
unwarranted
legal
contention,
the
rule
is
so
squishily
worded
with
all
its
talk
of
reasonableness
and
consideration
of
the
circumstances
and
likeliness
that
even
a
totally
unqualified
judge
could
justify
applying
it
however
they
wanted.
Now,
Rule
11
does
not
actually
get
enforced
very
often.
Most
judges
are
very
cautious
about
determining
prior
to
the
ultimate
conclusion
of
a
lawsuit
that,
basically,
one
side
is
unreasonable
and
perfectly
willing
to
lie
in
documents
signed
under
oath.
When
it
does
get
enforced,
the
resulting
order
should
specify
who
is
to
pay
the
sanction
—
the
law
firm,
individual
attorney,
or
party
—
but
it’s
not
like
the
judge
necessarily
follows
up
on
that
unprompted.
If
you’re
already
getting
sanctioned
for
violating
Rule
11,
I
don’t
much
trust
you
to
accurately
explain
to
your
client
who
needs
to
pay
the
fees
for
it
and
why.
There
are
all
sorts
of
forums
in
different
jurisdictions
for
clients
(and
former
clients)
to
try
to
seek
redress
when
they
are
screwed
by
their
lawyers.
Sometimes,
after
months
or
years
of
diligent
follow-through,
a
few
of
them
even
get
it.
Most
just
get
ground
down
and
give
up.
Powerful
clients,
like
big
corporations
or
high-net-worth
individuals,
will
be
fine.
They
can
stand
up
to
their
lawyers
and
push
back
or
just
happily
survive
paying
for
fee
shifting
sanctions
out
of
their
excessively
deep
pockets.
All
the
rest
are
more
or
less
at
the
mercy
of
their
lawyers
and
will
continue
to
pay
for
a
lot
of
sanctions
that
shouldn’t
really
be
their
responsibility.
Unfortunately,
“mercy”
is
not
a
highly
valued
quality
in
this
profession.
Jonathan
Wolf
is
a
civil
litigator
and
author
of Your
Debt-Free
JD (affiliate
link).
He
has
taught
legal
writing,
written
for
a
wide
variety
of
publications,
and
made
it
both
his
business
and
his
pleasure
to
be
financially
and
scientifically
literate.
Any
views
he
expresses
are
probably
pure
gold,
but
are
nonetheless
solely
his
own
and
should
not
be
attributed
to
any
organization
with
which
he
is
affiliated.
He
wouldn’t
want
to
share
the
credit
anyway.
He
can
be
reached
at [email protected].
