Some reasonable thoughts

It's a good thing to be reasonable. But how exactly do you do it?What exactly is reasonable? How do you know if you’re being reasonable?Beats the heck out of me.But we got an interesting stab at the concept of reasonableness recently in a ruling by a federal judge in California that got a small amount of publicity over just one aspect: the reasonableness of attorney fees.“The ultimate touchstone is reasonableness,” the judge wrote. A billing rate of $3,000 an hour is “patently unreasonable.”What was reasonable for that lawyer, according to the judge, was $1,600 an hour.That was the part of the story that got some coverage in legal publications. What wasn’t noticed was the part of the ruling “service awards” for the named plaintiffs in a class action.The class action against Google ended in a $68 million settlement. The lead plaintiffs wanted $10,000 apiece — less than .06% of the settlement.Reasonable?Nope. The court noted that the $10,000 amount was more than 178 times that of class members who got $56 each.So what’s reasonable?$5,000 per lead plaintiff.So 89 times the value of class members getting $56.This doesn’t seem like a very precise formula for reasonableness (or am I being unreasonable?).There are two lessons to be learned from this.First: Reasonableness is in the eye of the beholding judge.Second: Always ask for twice as much as you think you should get.By the way, in case you’re wondering, the Legal Information Institute tells us that reasonable “means just, rational, appropriate, ordinary or usual under the circumstances. In law, it is a flexible standard used across many contexts.”So there’s no formula but there are a lot of synonyms.I guess that’s reasonable.Season’s greetings. It’s my favorite time of the year again: Halloween and The Breeders’ Cup!It’s spooky and scary — the races, that is. Kids in costumes, pumpkins and candy are great, but they’re a relief after the terror of picking winners.Will it be Forever Young (my pick last year) or Sovereignty or does it make more sense to bet on Knightsbridge?Really, I’m asking. I need to know.While you figure that out, do you remember the appropriately named horse that won in 2004? Check out the video.I’ll stop bothering you with my obsessions now.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads