Bluewave Home Solutions v Monte Maniz, San Mateo County Superior Court Case Number 19-CLJ-01802.


From the court's tentative ruling and online court records for the case it is Lawzilla's understanding the following happened:

Jessica Huang, Esq. of the Fox Rothschild law firm filed a petition to release property from a mechanic's lien filed by a contractor.




The petition is about a page long, maybe 1-1/2 pages, and alleges the lien has expired and is unenforceable.




An opposition was filed, and a six-page reply brief submitted.

The judge then granted the petition and said plaintiff could file a motion to recovery attorney fees and costs.




Attorney Jessica Huang then filed what amounts to a 2-page motion, plus her declaration and exhibits, to recover $8061.27 in legal fees and costs for her client.

The argument for the motion is 2-1/2 pages if one includes the case caption and introduction.

In the motion attorney Huang noted she charges $240 per hour. Another attorney at the Fox Rothschild law firm, Peter Ryan, charges $525 per hour.

Huang claimed she and Ryan spent 17.7 hours or $5245.50 to bring and defend the petition to release the lien.




Huang also claimed she spent another 6.4 hours or $1536 (almost 30 percent of the cost of the petition) to prepare a 2-page motion and declaration for legal fees and costs the court had already ordered could be filed.




Another $1279.77 were claimed for costs.




Included in the costs were interesting items such as $859.30 for "court filings" but Lawzilla's reading of the exhibits is the court only charged $411. ($400 to file the petition and $11 for a copy of the mechanic's lien).

Much of the costs Jessica Huang and Fox Rothschild claimed as "court filings" and other costs were things like:

$41.10 in check charges paid to another company

$247.20 for "special" services for someone to visit the Redwood City courthouse

$150 in non-attorney "court time"

$7 was spent to send 28 pages by fax/ email (our suspicion is email)

$50 for apparently expedited same-day work charges

$11.77 to FedEx papers to defendant's attorney

The judge denied the motion in its entirety. The judge ruled:

"The Court finds Petitioner counsel’s declaration insufficient."

The judge further ruled:

"Petitioner has not sufficiently demonstrated the reasonableness of the fees sought."

"Ms. Huang failed to provide detailed evidence of hours spent and the tasks concluded."

"Moreover, Ms. Huang has not established her personal knowledge for the hours billed by Mr. Ryan."

"Furthermore, the redacted invoices for billings incurred through April 30, 2019 are of no assistance...."

However, the court's ruling does state it is "without prejudice". That suggests to Lawzilla another, better motion can be again filed in the future.

In our opinion it was inexcusable for an attorney charging $240 per hour, and another attorney charging $525 per hour, to file such a poor request to recover legal fees and costs for their client that it is denied entirely by the judge. Not a penny was granted.

We noted the very short length of the papers filed during this matter. Length does not mean more should be charged, but at some point one has to question how much attorney time is being spent and if this time was educational for the attorneys to learn the law about the issue. That is something you can judge for yourself.

Finally, if Fox Rothschild or its client wants to pay "interesting" costs that is their nickel. They can pay whatever they want. But there is some arrogance, in our opinion, in asking a judge to award certain amounts.

We do not know the defendant and maybe he deserves to be hit hard. But that isn't the point.

We would want our attorney to be careful with our money while at the same time not losing credibility by potentially over-reaching with a judge. The loss of credibility in one case any have a detrimental impact in a future case before the judge.

In our opinion, if it was us we would not even charge our client for the losing fees motion. It's that embarrassing to read the judge's ruling.

Our view is we would not recommend Jessica Huang, at this point in time, and have serious questions about Fox Rothschild and what oversight there was over costs and Huang's actions.

We noted there was zero time claimed by senior attorney Peter Ryan to review what Jessica Huang was filing with the court to recover fees and costs. Maybe there was oversight and it was not claimed, but we suspect there was not and the motion was lost. It might be even worse if Mr. Ryan claimed he did review and approve of her declaration.

Jessica Huang was admitted to the California Bar in 2017. Bar Number 315208.

Fox Rothschild LLP
345 California Street, Suite 2200
San Francisco, California 94104 County

Law School: University of California, Hastings College of The Law