Jenkins v. McCoy’s Empirical Analysis
1995
Citation profile
3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently December 2012
3 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act)) · 42 U.S.C. § 1988
Relies on Hensley v. Eckerhart · Johnson v. Georgia Highway Express, Inc. · Maher v. Gagne · Blanchard v. Bergeron · Gilbert v. First National Bank of Jackson
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 9 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Court emphasizes it exercises its inherent powers over attorney fee agreements reluctantly. Such matters are, in all but rare instances, left to the parties. However, the Court must be mindful of its duties to oversee lawyers, who are its officers after all. When lawyers seek to take unfair advantage of unsophisticated clients and then conceal such shenanigans from the Court, all in an effort to gain financially at a client’s expense, the Court vigorously must protect the integrity of the system of civil justice by utilizing its inherent oversight authority. Lawyers perform an important societal function, acting as advocates for those unschooled in the law. Among the most noble and admired services a lawyer can provide is representation to an indigent. Such representation deserves reasonable compensation and Congress has given its encouragement by enacting § 1988 and similar fee providing statutes. [An attorney] is to be commended for agreeing to appointment as counsel for the Plaintiff and his success in this ease has been and is applauded by the Court. He was entitled to reasonable fees under § 1988. But by violating the trust of both the Plaintiff and this Court he unfortunately tarnishes the profession as a whole, encouraging the conventional wisdom that lawyers are greedy and self-serving.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Heldreth v. Rahimian“where the lawyer has a heightened personal interest in the outcome of litigation, as he does in pure fee litigation, greater, not lesser candor, is to be expected of counsel. Although the right to pursue the fee belongs to the client, the public perception is that the lawyer has a vested interest in the fee, so maintenance of the integrity of the judicial system demands a greater level of candor from the lawyer. "The [judicial] system can provide no harbor for clever devices to divert the search, mislead opposing counsel or the court, or cover up that which is necessary for justice in the end.” United States v. Shaffer Equipment Co., 11 F.3d at 457-58.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Heldreth v. Rahimian“Courts can open their doors to the public, but they must rely on lawyers to guide the litigant through the passageways. In entrusting the litigant to the legal profession, courts recognize the possibility that a self-serving lawyer may ignore the best interests of the courts and his clients. Attentive to the demands of the public interest, courts retain supervisory power over the attorney-client relationship. Fees are central to that relationship, and contingent fee arrangements are therefore subject to the courts’ supervision.”
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Heldreth v. Rahimian
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.