Sound Around v. Friedman
- Denise Cote
- 1:24-cv-01986
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 10
Counsel of record per CourtListener. Firm names are approximate and have been consolidated across spelling variants.
In Sound Around v. Moises Friedman, Judge Parker awarded $34,137 in fees after reducing Sound Around’s request for sanctions-related legal work.
Sound Around, Inc., which sought reimbursement for fees incurred in bringing its earlier sanctions motion; the order awarded it $34,137.
What happened
Sound Around, Inc. asked the court to reimburse $56,895 for legal work connected to an earlier motion for sanctions involving discovery. The request covered 69.5 hours billed by four partners and a paralegal.
The court found the partners’ hourly rates reasonable but found the paralegal’s $300 hourly rate unreasonable. It also found that the lawyers used unclear combined time entries and staffed a straightforward motion with too many senior lawyers.
Judge Katharine H. Parker applied a 40% reduction and awarded Sound Around $34,137 in attorneys’ fees under the court’s earlier sanctions order.
The detailed version
- Sound Around v. Friedman · No. 1:24-cv-01986
- Denise Cote
- July 17, 2026
Background
The court had previously granted Sound Around’s motion for sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37. Sound Around then applied for $56,895 in attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in bringing that sanctions motion. Its lawyers reported 69.5 hours of work by four partners and one paralegal, performed between January 24 and March 23, 2026.
Legal standard
The court explained that a reasonable fee is generally calculated by multiplying a reasonable hourly rate by the number of hours reasonably spent. The party seeking fees bears the burden of showing that the requested rates and hours are reasonable. Courts may reduce fees for excessive, redundant, unnecessary, or inadequately documented work.
Court’s analysis
The court found the hourly rates charged for the four partners reasonable because they were within or below rates generally approved in the Southern District of New York for experienced partners handling complex litigation. It reached a different conclusion for the paralegal’s $300 hourly rate, finding that rate unreasonable for the straightforward sanctions motion.
The court also found problems with the hours claimed. Some time entries combined multiple tasks into a single block of time, making it unclear how much time was spent on each task and whether some communications concerned the sanctions motion or other work. The court further found that the motion was overstaffed: no junior or mid-level associate performed the main drafting work, while three partners participated in multiple editing rounds. The court determined that this staffing was not reasonable for the motion.
Disposition
Judge Katharine H. Parker applied a 40% reduction to the requested fees. The reduction resulted in an award of $34,137 to Sound Around in attorneys’ fees pursuant to the court’s April 7, 2026 sanctions order.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.