A federal judge in the United States has rejected a $3,000-an-hour billing rate submitted by a plaintiffs’ attorney as “patently unreasonable,” even as hourly fees charged by leading corporate and class action lawyers continue to rise sharply across the American legal market.
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U.S. District Judge Beth Labson Freeman made the ruling while reviewing attorneys’ fees arising from a class action settlement in litigation involving Google Assistant and allegations concerning the recording of private conversations.
Although the judge ultimately approved the plaintiffs’ request for attorneys’ fees amounting to 33 per cent of the settlement fund, finding the overall award reasonable for the relevant market, she sharply criticised the highest individual hourly rate submitted by the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
“It is not unusual for named partners to charge more than other partners… But not to $3,000 an hour,” Freeman said.
The judge consequently imposed a ceiling of $1,600 per hour for the most senior attorneys whose billing rates were being considered in the case.
The decision provides a relatively rare public look into the rates being charged by high-end American lawyers, since detailed legal billing arrangements are often confidential and usually become publicly available only when courts are required to scrutinise attorneys’ fees in proceedings such as class actions and bankruptcy cases.
The underlying litigation involved claims that Google Assistant improperly recorded private conversations and used information derived from those recordings in connection with targeted advertising.
Google denied wrongdoing but agreed to settle the litigation rather than continue bearing the costs and risks associated with the case.
As part of her review of the lawyers’ fee application, Freeman examined the hourly rates claimed by individual attorneys and made a number of downward adjustments in calculating what lawyers describe as the lodestar — the figure derived from multiplying reasonable hours worked by reasonable hourly rates.
The most striking adjustment concerned the unnamed senior partner whose hourly rate had been presented at $3,000.
Freeman rejected the figure and applied the $1,600 hourly ceiling.
Daryl Scott, another attorney whose rate was listed at $1,960 per hour, also had his rate reduced under the court’s review.
Attorneys Geoffrey Horn and Vincent Briganti of Lowey Dannenberg had submitted hourly rates of $1,795.
Despite rejecting some of the individual rates, the court did not criticise the overall quality of the legal representation or suggest that the case had been unnecessarily staffed.
On the contrary, Freeman described the settlement secured for members of the class as “excellent” and approved the overall fee award sought by the plaintiffs’ lawyers.
The distinction drawn by the court was therefore between the reasonableness of the overall fee award and the hourly rates being used to support that request.
The dispute over the $3,000 hourly figure comes amid a broader surge in legal fees at major American law firms.
Hourly billing rates at leading U.S. law firms increased by an average of about seven per cent in 2025, according to findings attributed to the Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown Law.
At the upper end of the market, the figures are substantially higher.
Earlier in 2026, prominent litigation firm Susman Godfrey disclosed that hourly rates for some of its leading partners on selected hourly matters had reached $4,000.
The development illustrates the widening gap between ordinary legal billing and rates charged for a relatively small group of highly sought-after trial lawyers, corporate dealmakers and appellate specialists.
Corporate clients have increasingly been confronted with hourly rates ranging from about $2,500 to $3,400 for some elite practitioners, particularly lawyers brought into major trials, complex transactions or high-stakes appellate and Supreme Court litigation.
At the same time, corporate legal departments have been exploring greater use of artificial intelligence and other technology in an effort to control costs, particularly for work traditionally carried out by associates and junior lawyers.
The tension has created an unusual dynamic within the legal services market: technology may be reducing the amount of time required for some routine legal tasks, while the hourly price charged for the most senior and sought-after lawyers continues to increase.
Legal fee specialists have also cautioned that headline hourly rates do not necessarily provide the fullest picture of why legal bills become so large.
While a $3,000 or $4,000 hourly rate naturally attracts attention, the overall staffing of a matter can have an even greater impact on the final bill.
The number of lawyers assigned to a case, duplication of work and the attendance of multiple attorneys at meetings, depositions and court proceedings can collectively add far more to a client’s costs than the rate charged by any single lawyer.
Freeman’s ruling therefore stands out not because the American legal market has never seen hourly rates approaching or exceeding $3,000, but because the figure was presented for judicial approval in a class action where the court had an obligation to determine whether the fees ultimately charged against the settlement fund were reasonable.
Her decision leaves intact the plaintiffs’ overall 33 per cent fee award while drawing a firm distinction between what elite lawyers may command from willing private corporate clients and what a federal court is prepared to recognise as a reasonable hourly rate when scrutinising attorneys’ fees on behalf of a class.
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