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respect to the litigation group of Hoyt investor clients, we
award petitioner $3,577.22, which represents a one-ninth share of
the attorney’s fees adjusted to an hourly rate of $150 and
costs.24
The problem with petitioner’s attempt to recover her
allocable portion of the general group’s fees and costs is that
the information provided does not enable us to fully evaluate the
reasonableness of the group fees or the reasonableness of the
allocation. The composition of the general group of Hoyt
investors varied from month to month as clients chose to have
their claims dismissed or became widowed and divorced and sought
relief only under section 6015(c). Because the billing records
24We compute petitioner’s share of the litigation group’s
fees and costs as follows: $37,667 (total fees and costs
incurred by litigation group), minus $13,962 (total attorney’s
fees incurred at $195 hourly rate), plus $10,740 (total
attorney’s fees incurred at $195 hourly rate adjusted to hourly
rate of $150), minus $2,250 (15 hours of work performed at $150
hourly rate), divided by 9 (members of litigation group), equals
$3,577.22.
We subtracted 15 hours of work performed at an hourly rate
of $150 in computing the total amount of fees and costs incurred
by the litigation group because petitioner’s counsel stated that
approximately 15 billable hours shown on the billing records of
the litigation group’s account were actually charged to members
of the general group. Because petitioner’s counsel have failed
to identify the nature of the work or hourly rate for those 15
hours, we assume that they were billed at the highest hourly rate
allowed. Further, we do not add any charges for the 15 hours to
the total costs and fees incurred by the general group of Hoyt
investors in computing petitioner’s share of that group’s fees
and costs because we lack any information about the 15 hours of
work performed.
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