Arnold v. O’Malley

Plaintiff’s law firm appealed from a district court order declining to award the firm’s requested attorneys fees in an underlying disability matter. The district court had disregarded a contingency fee agreement signed by the plaintiff and reduced the requested fees by 60 percent, finding that the full amount of the fees was prohibited by the statute as a “windfall” to the law firm. The Seventh Circuit vacated the district court’s order and remanded for further proceedings, finding that the district court abused its discretion when it did not first consider the language of the contingency fee agreement before considering the reasonableness of the request.