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VIRGINIA DEPT. OF HEALTH AND HUMAN RESOURCES Ginsburg, J., dissenting
general." Id., at 5; H. R. Rep. No. 94-1558, p. 2 (1976). Such suitors, Congress recognized, often "cannot afford legal counsel." Id., at 1. They therefore experience "severe hardshi[p]" under the "American Rule." Id., at 2. Congress enacted § 1988 to ensure that nonaffluent plaintiffs would have "effective access" to the Nation's courts to enforce civil rights laws. Id., at 1.9 That objective accounts for the fee-shifting provisions before the Court in this case, prescriptions of the FHAA and the ADA modeled on § 1988. See supra, at 624-625, n. 1.
Under the catalyst rule that held sway until today, plaintiffs who obtained the relief they sought through suit on genuine claims ordinarily qualified as "prevailing parties," so that courts had discretion to award them their costs and fees. Persons with limited resources were not impelled to "wage total law" in order to assure that their counsel fees would be paid. They could accept relief, in money or of another kind, voluntarily proffered by a defendant who sought to avoid a recorded decree. And they could rely on a judge then to determine, in her equitable discretion, whether counsel fees were warranted and, if so, in what amount.10
9 See H. R. Rep. No. 94-1558, at 1 ("Because a vast majority of the victims of civil rights violations cannot afford legal counsel, they are unable to present their cases to the courts. . . . [This statute] is designed to give such persons effective access to the judicial process . . . ."); S. Rep. No. 94-1011, at 2 ("If private citizens are to be able to assert their civil rights, and if those who violate the Nation's fundamental laws are not to proceed with impunity, then citizens must have the opportunity to recover what it costs them to vindicate these rights in court."), quoted in part in Kay v. Ehrler, 499 U. S. 432, 436, n. 8 (1991). See also Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U. S. 400, 401-402 (1968) (per curiam) ("When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, it was evident that enforcement would prove difficult and that the Nation would have to rely in part upon private litigation as a means of securing broad compliance with the law. . . . [Congress] enacted the provision for counsel fees . . . to encourage individuals injured by racial discrimination to seek judicial relief . . . .").
10 Given the protection furnished by the catalyst rule, aggrieved individuals were not left to worry, and wrongdoers were not led to believe, that
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