Hart v. Bourque’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

23 federal appellate · 23 district · 4 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 59 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “spent on arrangements for lectures or publications about the case”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. Rum Creek Coal Sales, Inc. v. Caperton · Halderman v. Pennhurst State School & Hospital

2. “[T]urnover among Mr. Owens’s associates, or, at least, transfers of duties, was highly extravagant from the standpoint of time. In the first place, backgrounds of familiarity would be lost. This inefficiency would be unobservable as it affected particular jobs, but it even resulted in specific charges. Thus, when one new attorney early on had to write a short review of the status of the case, she charged 5.75 hours. A later replacement charged for “reviewing files,” 10.5 hours. Ultimately, another replacement charged 23 hours for reviewing files. At $80 an hour, that alone would be $1,840. This was an office defect, not chargeable to defendants.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 577 F. Supp. 2d 553 - Esso Standard Oil Co. v. Lopez Freytes

3. “Further duplication of effort is observable by dual attendance at motion hearings, no matter how inconsequential. This may have been good experience for the onlooker; it did not advance the case. Plaintiff forgets, a not uncommon practice these days, our caution in King v. Greenblatt, 560 F.2d 1024, 1027 (1st Cir. 1977), that the time for two or three lawyers in a court-room or conference, when one would do, “must obviously be discounted.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 23 Mass. L. Rptr. 480 - Mustapha v. DaimlerChrysler Co.