Civil Rights Clinic Wins Attorney's Fees Award

The UC Davis School of Law Civil Rights Clinic recently won an award of more than $34,000 in attorney's fees for its work on a prisoner civil rights case.  In Gilman v. Brown, the Clinic is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit challenging changes in parole procedures for life prisoners.

In February 2014, U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton granted declaratory and injunctive relief to the plaintiff class, finding that the provisions of California initiatives extending the period for a subsequent hearing following denial of parole and allowing the governor to veto parole could not be applied to persons convicted under the prior laws.  That order is currently on appeal and has been stayed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.  

The district court awarded fees for more than 275 hours of work by clinic law students and Clinic Director Carter C. White for work including interviews with potential named plaintiffs at several prisons in California, legal research, assistance with drafting the amended complaint, motion for class certification, and discovery motions, preparing documentary evidence admitted at trial, and more.

The court's order included fees for the work of Navruz Avloni '09, Walter Biggart '09, Jamie Chon '09, Caitlin Jung '13, Amanda Pearson '09, Tracy Tjoeng '09, Daniel Sharpe '09, Andrew Slade '09, Brett Smith '14, Cheryl Wei '11, and Maria Weitz '09.  King Hall alums Andrew Bluth '04 and Mike Mills '97 provided declarations for the Clinic to use in establishing its entitlement to attorney's fees.