Cite as: 527 U. S. 343 (1999)
Opinion of Ginsburg, J.
market-based fee that attorneys anticipated for work performed under the old regime, counsel would be limited to the new statutory rate. We long ago recognized the injustice of interpreting a statute to reduce the level of compensation for work already performed. See United States v. Heth, 3 Cranch 399, 408-409 (1806) (precluding, as impermissibly retroactive, application of a statute reducing customs collectors' commissions to customs collected before enactment, even when the commission was due after the statute's effective date).
III
In my view, § 803(d) is most soundly read to cover all, and only, representations undertaken after the PLRA's effective date. Application of § 803(d) to representations commenced before the PLRA became law would "attac[h] new legal consequences to [an] even[t] completed before [the statute's] enactment"; hence the application would be retroactive under Landgraf. 511 U. S., at 270. The critical event effected before the PLRA's effective date is the lawyer's undertaking to prosecute the client's civil rights claim. Applying § 803(d) to pending matters significantly alters the consequences of the representation on which the lawyer has embarked.2 Notably, attorneys engaged before passage of the PLRA have little leeway to alter their conduct in response to the new legal regime; an attorney who initiated a prison-er's rights suit before April 26, 1996, remains subject to a professional obligation to see the litigation through to final disposition. See ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 1.3, and Comment [3] (1999) ("[A] lawyer should carry
2 An attorney's decision to invest time and energy in a civil rights suit necessarily involves a complex balance of factors, including the likelihood of success, the amount of labor necessary to prosecute the case to completion, and the potential recovery. Applying § 803(d) to PLRA representations ongoing before April 26, 1996, effectively reduces the value of the lawyer's prior investment in the litigation, and disappoints reasonable reliance on the law in place at the time of the lawyer's undertaking.
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