Paralegal Costs May Be Recovered

The North Dakota Supreme Court held that an award of attorney’s fees may properly include the cost of services rendered by paralegals:

There is no case law directly addressing this question in North Dakota, though this Court has upheld an award of attorney’s fees that included paralegal costs. Ritter, Laber & Assoc. v. Koch Oil, Inc., 2007 ND 163, ¶¶ 26, 36, 740 N.W.2d 67 (fees awarded to prevailing party in class action under N.D.R.Civ.P. 23(p) included those of paralegal). The North Dakota Rules of Professional conduct suggest paralegal fees may properly be awarded. See N.D.R. Prof. Conduct 1.5(f) (“A lawyer may charge for work performed by a legal assistant.”). These indications from North Dakota law coupled with the persuasiveness of the federal cases bespeak the propriety of allowing paralegal costs to be included in reasonable attorney’s fees. The trial court did not err by awarding paralegal costs.

(Mike Frisch) 

[UPDATE: see comments to this post for today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on paralegal costs.]