Court filings: District Court, Joshua intervenors' memorandum in support of their motion for an award of attorneys' fees

The transcript for this item was created using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and may contain some errors. . : .. ... FILEO US. DISTRICT COURT ' EASTFRN DISTRICT ARKANSAS SfP 27 1996 ~;~ES W, Mcl.iUHMA~K, CLERK SEP ~ 0 1996 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF AR.KANSAS Otfice ot Desegregation Monitorm9 WESTERN DIVISION -- -- _ .. ___ -. ___ ..,,_,, ... ~ - LITTLE ROCK SCHOOL DISTRICT, ET AL. v. NO. LR-C-82-866 PULASKI COUNTY SPECIAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, ET AL. MRS. LORENE JOSHUA ET AL. KATHERINE W. KNIGHT, ET AL. OEP ClfRI( PLAINTIFFS DEFENDANTS INTERVENORS INTERVENORS The Joshua Intervenors' Memorandum in Support of Their Motion for An Award of Attorneys' Fees (September 1996) The LRSD defendants sought as to LRSD an end to the requirement that the plans be implemented. The district sought an end to the court's jurisdiction, and, thereby, any role for ODM. The Joshua Intervenors filed a comprehensive response. The Joshua Intervenors prevailed on this matter when the court on September 23, 1996 denied LRSD's motion. The Joshua Intervenors are, at minimum, entitled to an award of attorneys' fees for their work on this matter as prevailing parties . .E..,__g_,_, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988; Little Rock Sch. Dist. v. Pulaski County Special Sch. Dist. No. 1, 17 F.3d 260 (8th Cir. 1994); Hatfield v. Hayes, 877 F.2d 717, 719-20 (8th Cir. 1989). 1 1 By making this motion and this argument, the Joshua Intervenors do not waive their contention that they are entitled to fee awards at this stage of the case based upon their engaging in reasonable post-judgment monitoring, irrespective of their "prevailing" with regard to each separate element of their work. 1 The time claimed for the efforts of Joshua counsel -- 50.16 hours is reasonable. See Declaration of Bob Pressman, para. (12.} and Attachment One. It has been described on a daily basis, based upon contemporaneous records. Id. Time is claimed for one person (lead counsel, John W. Walker's and Ms. Springer's time has been waived}. The intervenors had to take seriously an effort to end, as to LRSD, the requirement that the plans be implemented and the court's jurisdiction. The LRSD memorandum cited 40 court decisions. Preparation of a response required consideration of not only many of these decisions and others, but also, among other things: the LRSD's exhibits (numbering 17}, the text of the various plans and other documents, the testimony of witnesses Armor, Orfield, and Walberg, and the court's various findings about the quality of "compliance" by the officials and agents of the LRSD. The rate sought for an attorney with more than 30 years of relevant experience, much in the areas of school desegregation and racial discrimination generally, is proper. First. The rate is supported by rulings of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. 2 Second. The rate is shown to be reasonable by reference 2 See McDonald v. Armentrout, 860 F.2d 1456, 1460, 1461 (8th Cir. 1988} (in 1988, the court noted its approval in 1986 in this case of the rate of$ 200\hour for a Washington, D.C. "cooperating attorney who had been in practice approximately thirty years" and of the same rate in 1988 in the Kansas City case for "an experienced civil rights attorney for his services in [that] school desegregation case ... "}; Planned Parenthood Sioux Falls Clinic v. Miller, 70 F.3d 517 (8th Cir. 1995} (rates of from$ 200 to $ 260 per hour for the work of four attorneys in an appeal}; see also Joshua Intervenors' final submission in support of our earlier comprehensive fee petition documenting that the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit made an award recently to lead counsel for work on the Harvell appeal at the rate of$ 250 per hour}. 2 to the ruling in Morgan y. Gittens. see Pressman Dec., para. ( 13. ) ( d) and enclosed copy of the opinion. Third. The rate is supported by the Declaration of Thomas I. Atkins and the affidavits of Geraldine Hines and Jeffrey Kabrick (attached to the motion). Fourth. The rate is supported by the survey conducted by the publication Arkansas Business. See Pressman Dec., para. (13.) (e) and survey attached thereto. Conclusion The motion should be granted, promptly. # 6404 Walker, P.A. 723 Broadway Little Rock, AR 72206 501-374-3758 ..E,<,~6'~ Bob Pressman MA# 405900 22 Locust Avenue Lexington, MA 02173 617-862-1955 3 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS TALLULAH MORGAN, ET AL., Plaintiffs, ( v. CIVIL ACTION NO. 72-911-WAG ROBERT GITTENS, ET AL,, Defendants. JUDGMENT AWARDING ATTORNEYS' FEES AND EXPENSES This action came on for hearing before the Court, Honorable w. Arthur Garrity, Jr., District Judge presiding, on plaintiffs' applications for attorneys' fees and expenses pursuant to 42 U.S.C. section 1988, and the issues having been duly heard and a - decision having been duly rendered on the basis of the findings of fact and conclusions of law stated in the Memorandum of Decision filed contemporaneously herewith, It is Ordered and Adjudged that the plaintiffs Tallulah Morgan et al. recover of the defendants Robert Gittens et al. the sum of $228,162.69, of which $128,162.69 shall be paid to Thomas I. Atkins, Esq., and $100,000 to the Law and Education Center, Inc., for the services of Robert Pressman, Esq. Dated at Boston, Massachusetts, this 3_L day of January, 1996. UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS TALLULAH MORGAN, ET AL., Plaintiffs, v. CIVIL ACTION NO. 72-911-WAG ROBERT GITTENS1 , ET AL., Defendants. GARRITY, D.J. MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AS TO ATTORNEYS' FEES January 31, 1996 As noted in the Final Judgment and the Final Judgment as Amended, 2 the Court has under advisement plaintiffs' In keeping with practice, the named defendant is the Chairman of the Boston School Committee. Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 25(d) (1), defendant Gittens is substituted as the named defendant; and Mayor Thomas M. Menino and other successor municipal officers are automatically substituted as parties defendant. 2 Between May 1990 and July 1994, judgment was amended thrice by this Court, on September 19, 1990, June 21, 1991, and July 30, 1993, and once on February 21, 1991 by the Court of 1 I applications for awards of attorneys fees and expenses pursuant to 42 u.s.c. 1988. In November 1988 Attorneys Atkins and Pressman were awarded compensation for services and expenses through December 14, 1988 and October 5, 1988 respectively, Atkins by court order and Pressman by agreement with defendant. Since then plaintiffs have filed a series of applications, initially in December 1989, followed by several supplements3 covering services and expenses of Atkins and services of Pressman through the summer of 1993. They have not sought compensation for time spent thereafter on miscellaneous matters and preparing further memoranda. 4 Defendant City of Boston has responded to each of plaintiffs' applications, contesting their right to any awards at all and raising several particular objections. The Court heard oral argument on April 18, 1990 and has received voluminous supporting materials, including comprehensive, detailed and contemporaneous records of time spent and expenditures incurred; affidavits of the applicants stating their general qualifications and describing particular services in the instant case; affidavits of members of the bar of this court attesting to the reasonableness of the hourly rates Appeals. Precise dates are omitted partly because unnecessary since they appear on related exhibits and because there are small differences in the filing dates and periods covered by plaintiffs' separate applications and supplements for services. Plaintiffs' last memorandum was filed on June 1, 1995 to which defendants replied on June 16, 1995. 2 charged; reports in legal publications as to fees customarily charged in 1989 by lawyers in law firms in Boston and elsewhere; and transcripts of prior proceedings in this case. 5 In ruling upon the pending applications, the Court has analyzed a small mountain of filings which might in other contexts be overkill but not here because the events to which the services of counsel relate are long past and had to be reconstructed. OVERVIEW OF APPLICATIONS Thomas I. Atkins, Esquire, is in private practice specializing in civil rights litigation, particularly school desegregation cases, with offices in Brooklyn, New York. Due to his scholarship and long specialized experience, Mr. Atkins is in a class by himself representing plaintiffs in this type of litigation. Before moving to the national scene, he was active in Boston civic affairs since his days at Harvard Law School. For example, he was elected as a city councillor for two terms, and learned of the City's racial tensions first hand. Robert Pressman, Esquire, has comparable credentials, outlined in his affidavit filed with plaintiffs' application dated January 24, 1990. Following five years with the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, he came in 1970 to the Center for Law and Education in Cambridge, a national support center for the entire legal services program on education issues. Mr. Pressman has tried school desegregation cases in a dozen 5 Especially relevant is the Court's appraisal at a November 15, 1988 hearing of Attorney Atkins' extraordinary qualifications as counsel for plaintiff class. 3 federal district courts, argued appeals in several federal circuits and been a principal contributor for two years to the Education Law Bulletin. Of all the attorneys who have filed appearances for various parties to these proceedings, who probably number in the thirties, he is the only one who was with the case since its inception, attending more hearings and submitting more briefs than any other lawyer. Being an employee of the Center, the Court's award to plaintiffs for his services will go to the Law and Education Center, Inc. Total compensation sought by plaintiffs for Atkins' services is $129,123 plus reimbursement of expenses amounting to $3,162.69, and for Pressman $109,311 for services with no claim for expenses. The application for Atkins is predicated on an hourly rate of $300, and for Pressman a rate of $200. Both applications are approximately $18,000 greater than those submitted on August 27, 1993 for such services and expenses. At that time, as shown in the following tables of applications filed on the dates and covering the time periods specified, hourly rates charged by Atkins increased from $240 in 1988 to $300 in 1991; and by Pressman from $140 in 1988 to $200 in 1991. 6 Plaintiffs are now seeking awards for the first three years, 6 A third set of periodic applications was received from plaintiff intervenors El Comite de Padres Pro Defensa de la Educacion Bilinque, capably represented in these proceedings for two decades by Attorney Caroline B. Playter of Boston. Ms. Playter's hourly charges increased from $125 to $140 in 1990, and her reapplication filed in 1995 was based upon a current hourly rate of $175. As occurred with all previous applications by El Comite de Padres, its final one was settled. 4 - 1988-91, at rates which their attorneys began charging in 1991. ATKINS' P~RIOOIC APP~ICATIOII~ P~RIOO C~R~Q HClJRS ~ !.ill Qill TOTALS SUBMITTED 12/15/88-12/16/89 239 240/hr 57,360.00 2,134.41 59,494.41 1/24/90 1/3/90-4/30/90 4.5 265/hr 12,852.50 192.70 13,045.20 4/30/90 5/1/90-5/18/90 23.25 265/hr 6, 161.25 n.a. 6,161.25 5/18/90 5/19/90-5/21/90 2l .OO 265/hr 5,565.00 308.70 5,873.70 6/6/90 5/30/90-4/2/91 17.75 265/hr 4,703.75 n.a. 2,928.75 4/8/91 9/26/90-12/4/90 7.50 265/hr l,987.50 n.a. l,987.50 4/8/91 4/15/91-8/24/93 73.41 300/hr 22,023.00 526.88 22,549.88 8/24/93 TOTALS: 430.41 110,653.00 3,162.69 113,815.69 PRESSMAN'S PERIOOIC APPLICATIONS AFFIDAVIT DATE OATES OF \IORK HClJRS RATE TOTAL 12/29/89 l0/6/88-12/29/88 12.40 $140 S 1,736.00 4/9/90 1/13/89-12/28/89 211.TT $160 $33,883.20 5/18/90 1/2/90-5/18/90 114.23 S160" $18,276.80 4/3/91 7/3/90-4/1/91 83.15 $160 $13,304.00 10/28/93 4/11/91-6/28/93 50% of hours 62.50 $180 S11,250.00 SOX of hours 62.50 $200 $12,500.00 TOTAL HClJRS: 546.55 AMOJNT: $90,950.00 Fees claimed in these periodic filings totalled $201,603; fees now sought total $238,434, an increase of $36,831. Expenses of $3,162.69, 1 all incurred by Atkins, remain the same. Without waiving explicitly a general objection to the Court's continuing jurisdiction to award fees under 1988, defendants have modified their position regarding reasonable hourly rates for services of plaintiffs' attorneys. In two oppositions filed in April, 1990, they first contended that Defendants' initial objection to this item was waived at page 10 of their memorandum filed December 13, 1993-. 5 maximum hourly rates for Atkins' services should be $140 and $90 for Pressman. The second opposition increased these figures to $200 and $140 respectively; but argued that roughly two-thirds of the applicants' services should be classified as "non-core" and compensated at the lower hourly rates of $160 and $100 respectively. A later defendants' memorandum in opposition filed in December 1993, applicable to services after April 11, 1991, agrees to increased hourly rates of $300 and $190 for core work8 but suggests $190 and $120 for non-core, respectively. Total fees proposed by defendants in their December 13, 1993 memorandum in opposition, without waiving substantive objections, are $56,674.15 for Atkins and $50,372.20 for Pressman, a total of $107,046.35. Costs of $3,162.69 incurred by Atkins have not been reduced by defendants in relation to fee reductions. Historical Background Consideration of the merits of plaintiffs' pending applications requires an understanding of the relevant history of these proceedings. It is recounted in detail in Morgan v. Nucci, 620 F. Supp. 214, 217-218 (D. Mass. 1985), and Morgan v. Nucci, 831 F.2d 313, 315-17 (1st Cir. 1987), and shows how the Court's remedial orders were lifted incrementally, a procedure later endorsed in Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467, 489 (1992). The case was closed, except for the pending applications, in similar 8 These were merely token concessions, however, since they pertained to only 4.5 hours of 96 hours claimed by Atkins during a period of more than two years; and to only 24 hours of the 115 hours claimed by Pressman during the same period. 6 incremental fashion by so-called Final Orders dated September 3, 1985 (attached as Appendix A), Final Judgment dated May 31, 1990, Amended Final Judgments dated September 19, 1990 and June 21, 1991 and Final Judgment as Amended dated July 19, 1994. An important closing order, vacating the Court's injunctive orders which had governed the student assignment process, was also issued by the Court of Appeals on September 28, 1987. See 831 F.2d at 326. Thereupon, the Defendant Mayor hired two consultants, Michael Alves and Charles Willie9 , to develop a new student assignment plan. After several months of consultations and hearings, the consultants in December 1988 proposed a plan to the Boston School Committee ("BSC") which approved its general framework on December 28, 1988. Following a public hearing on February 14, 1989, the Committee, on February 27, 1989, voted to adopt the plan subject to further modification arising out of the 90-day process ordered in paragraph 8 of the Court's 1985 final orders. The State Board convened eleven negotiating sessions, in which plaintiffs' counsel participated fully, which proposed numerous changes which were eventually adopted in April 1989 by the School Committee. Called the Controlled Choice Plan ("CCP"), it was scheduled for implementation at entry elementary grades in September 1989 (Phase I) and systernwide in September 1990 (Phase 9 Both were closely associated with the Court's plan, Alves as Project Director for Boston Desegregation Assistance at the State Board, and Willie as one of the four Masters who designed the plan adopted by the Court in 1975. 7 II); meanwhile the Court plan would continue in effect. Dissatisfied with some aspects of the CCP, and seeking more time for further study and amendments, plaintiffs moved for an injunction against its implementation on the ground that it would tend to resegregate the schools. After hearings on May 26, 30 and 31, 1989, the Court denied plaintiffs' motion, and Phase I of the CCP went into effect in September. In December the Committee again directed its general counsel "to initiate the 90- day process required for modification of orders in Morgan vs. O'Reilly so that the second phase of the new student Assignment' Plan adopted herewith may be implemented"; and again plaintiffs' counsel participated actively. Roughly 55% of counsels' services covered by the pending applications (532 hours out of a total of 977) pertains either directly or indirectly to the CCP. Another segment of plaintiffs' applications to which defendants are objecting on legal grounds is hours spent counteracting the efforts of the Boston Teachers Union ("BTU") to eliminate and then overturn on appeal paragraph (3) of the Final Judgment dated May 31, 1990, entitled "Faculty and Staffing." The legal point now alleged by the defendants is that time spent defending against an intervenor's claim, which was also resisted by the BSC, is not properly chargeable against the BSC and City defendants. Undisputed Areas Defendants have not questioned several essential 8 components of plaintiffs' overall burden of proving their entitlement to attorneys' fees and expenses during the wind-down phase of these proceedings. The first is plaintiffs' having prevailed in demonstrating pervasive~~ segregation in Boston public schools and obtaining numerous far-ranging remedial orders, nearly all affirmed by the Court of Appeals and left in place by Supreme Court denials of certiorari. Nor have defendants challenged the inter-relationship between the hours for which compensation is now sought and the several claims as to which plaintiffs gained complete success. See Lipsett v. Blanco, 975 F.2d 934, 940-41 (1st Cir. 1992). Also undisputed are the hours that plaintiffs' attorneys claimed that they worked, the adequacy of their descriptions of services performed, and the contemporaneity of their diary entries. Clearly they met the record-keeping requirements ordered in Grendel's Den, Inc. v. Larkin, 749 F.2d 945, 952 (1st cir. 1984). It is clear too that Atkins and Pressman exercised sound billing judgment. There was virtually10 no duplication of services; e.g., it is apparent from an exhibit filed with plaintiffs' first supplemental application that, of the 33 meetings and four days of hearings attended by plaintiffs' counsel pertaining to the Controlled Choice Plan, plaintiffs' attorneys attended together only two of them. It is also 10 Agreement on this point is qualified by defendants' contention, addressed post, that charges by Pressman for conferring with Atkins should be disallowed because they are "duplicative legal services." 9 apparent that work on behalf of plaintiffs' interests was divided so as to avoid duplication. All hours claimed were worked by Atkins and Pressman personally; none was referred to paralegals or associate counsel, any of whom would have required timeconsuming orientation and introduction to the complex, even arcane, issues with which plaintiffs' attorneys had become intimately familiar. Since his office was out of state, Atkins did not charge for time spent traveling to and from Boston. In sum, plaintiffs have made a strong prima facie showing of entitlement to the award of fees and expenses sought in the pending applications. It behooves them to show further that the hours claimed were reasonably spent and that their claimed hourly rates of compensation are reasonable. Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 433 (1983}; Blum v. Stenson, 465 U.S. 886, 895 (1984). These essential elements of plaintiffs' applications are disputed by defenda' nts on grounds which we now address. DEFENDANTS' OBJECTIONS As heretofore noted, most of counsels' services for which plaintiffs now seek compensation related to the Controlled Choice Plan. Of such CCP services, three-fourths comprised their participation in 90-day sessions concerning Phases I and II or in 90-day subcommittee work, and the balance pertained to plaintiffs' unsuccessful attempt, by motion for a preliminary injunction denied May 31, 1989, to delay implementation of the CCP until 1990. Defendants central objection to an award for 10 such services rests on the above-mentioned 1987 Court of Appeals decision vacating the Court's orders pertaining to student assignments; and our award of fees for such services reflects our understanding of the relationship of the appellate court's order to provisions of the 1985 Final Orders not appealed from. In the defendants' view, after September 25, 1987, "plaintiffs no longer had either the status of 'prevailing' parties on the issue of student assignments or the authority to monitor or review the school defendants' actions in developing and implementing the new plan." On the contrary, we find that the Court of Appeals ruling did not nullify any rights of the plaintiff class or deprive it of the victory it had achieved in the area of student assignments. Rather it reaffirmed plaintiffs' entitlement to the non-discriminatory treatment that they had received under the Court plan. It was aimed not at the plaintiffs, but at the lower court, which should no longer "continue to involve itself" in student assignments. The appellate decision did not affect paragraphs of the Final Orders on the unified facilities plan, parent councils, and faculty and staff. Nor did it disturb provisions of the Final Orders not appealed from, including the permanent injunction in Paragraph (2) and the detailed consent mechanism contained in paragraph (8) for the gradual transfer to the defendants of general responsibility for managing its schools, a transition begun with disengagement orders in 1982 and advanced by orders in 1984 and 1985 terminating the Court's 11 jurisdiction in several areas of school administration. At every turn, starting with negotiations initiated by the State Board in June 1981 aimed at fashioning a comprehensive consent decree, 11 never achieved, the Court relied upon the cooperation and, where obtainable, the collaboration of the defendants. Thus it came as no surprise that the school defendants, after September 25, 1987, resorted to the paragraph (8) procedures of the Final Orders to facilitate their development and implementation of the CCP, sometimes called the Alves-Willie Plan, aptly described by them as representing "an evolution, not a counterrevolution." Until the opening of the 1989-90 school year, the defendants continued to comply with the Court plan and, except for entry elementary grades, did so until September 1990, three years after the Court of Appeals mandate. Plaintiffs' counsel participated fully and constructively in the development of the CCP, not as strangers or volunteers, as defense counsel has suggested in opposing an award of fees, but at the repeated request of the defendants. The details of their services in this regard are set forth in affidavits appended to plaintiffs' applications. Generally speaking, as soon as an executive summary of the proposed new Plan was available on February 9, 1989, BSC's general counsel mailed copies to parties to the paragraph (8) 90- 11 The Court's memorandum dated August 2, 1983 acknowledged the first State Board monitoring report as "a long step toward a common ground from which the parties can discuss and confront issues of compliance and non-compliance in an intelligent and informed fashion." (emphasis added) 12 day process, including plaintiffs, with an assurance that they would receive complete copies when available. Promptly, on February 13, Atkins and Pressman replied with a five-page letter, copied to counsel for other 90-day process parties, raising various issues for discussion, including facilities and programs, seat allocations, transfers of students on the waiting list and opportunities for black pupiis to attend school in East Boston. All these and other issues raised in plaintiffs' letter were agenda items at several meetings moderated by the State Board. 12 Three series of 90-day process meetings were convened, all at the request of the school defendants, as follows: on February 27, 1989, the Boston School Committee approved the following order: ORDERED, That the School Committee approve the Controlled Choice Student Assignment Plan submitted on December 28, 1988 and amended by the School Committee on February 7, 1989 and February 27, 1989, and authorize the School Department to undertake the necessary preparations for implementation of the plan, subject to further modification pursuant to the procedures set forth in paragraph 8 of the Final Orders in Morgan v. O'Reilly. (emphasis added) On July 26, 1989, BSC General Counsel asked state Board counsel to convene a 90-day process to consider a package of school closings and consolidations, stating in part: 12 Former Superintendent Wilson's affidavit dated May 25, 1989 stated, at paragraph 15: "During February and March and April, my staff brought to my attention numerous additional concerns and recommendations for changes in the Plan raised during the course of the paragraph 8 proceedings. I considered them carefully and recommended to the Committee that it approve a number of amendments to the Plan based on those recommendations." 13 If you believe that these closings and consolidations conflict with any operative Court orders, the school defendants ask you to determine, pursuant to paragraph 8, that these closings and consolidations are emergency matters, due to the budget crisis, which the School Committee may adopt without negotiation or that these closings and consolidations effect insubstantial modifications of court orders and therefore need not be negotiated. If you determine that negotiations are required, we would appreciate your convening the parties immediately and attempting to expedite negotiations so that these closings and consolidations may be implemented in September 1989. (emphasis added) On December 12, 1989, the BSC adopted the following motion (12 affirmative, 1 absent): Resolved that the School Committee direct their Office of General Counsel to initiate the 90-day process required for modification of orders in Morgan vs. O'Reilly, so that the second phase of the new Student Assignment Plan adopted herewith may be implemented. (emphasis added) Continuing reliance by the BSC on the assistance of plaintiffs' attorneys regarding student assignments was demonstrated repeatedly during the development of the CCP. For example, in April 1989, the BSC established a three-member independent commission to review the pattern of actual assignments made for the 1989-90 school year, to be composed of one member appointed jointly by the City and the School Department, one member appointed by the plaintiffs, and one member appointed by the State Board of Education. By letter dated August 28, 1989, plaintiffs indicated that Pressman would 14 be their representative. For another, early in 1989 the BSC appointed a High School Student Assignment Subcommittee chaired by member Rosina T. ("Kitty") Bowman, to recommend development of a viable assignment plan for high school students. Plaintiffs designated Pressman to be their representative on the "Bowman Subcommittee" and, on this assignment, he spent 17.5 hours attending eight subcommittee meetings from October 30, 1989 through February 5, 1990. The collaborative relationship between plaintiffs' counsel and the BSC extended to implementation of the CCP and carried forward until the end of 1992. For example, on March 11, 1992, school committee counsel wrote to plaintiffs, in pertinent part as follows: Enclosed are several documents related to the proposed modifications to the Student Assignment Plan. The School Committee adopted the proposal (Attachment 1) conditioned upon satisfactory discussions among the parties. For another, on November 23, 1992, Pressman made a presentation to a BSC subcommittee at English High School with respect to proposed policy changes in the student assignment plan. We find that all the hours spent by Atkins and Pressman preparing and presenting proposals to other participants in the 90-day process negotiations and attending all 90-day process meetings and in related studies, consultations and presentations are compensable under 1988. Several legal theories support this award. One is quantum merrit: the defendants invited counsel's participation and benefitted substantially from it in a 15 context where it knew that plaintiffs' had received from defendants prior awards of attorneys' fees in the same litigation, that they had applied for and expected to receive further awards and that plaintiffs' counsel rendered their services in good faith. See Newfield House, Inc. v. Massachusetts Dept. of Public Welfare, 651 F.2d 32, 38 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1114 (1981); see also Transnational Corp. v. Rodie & Ursillo, Ltd., 920 F.2d 1066, 1070-71 (1st Cir. 1990). Another is that the 90-day process was, from plaintiffs' standpoint and interests, the equivalent of the further hearing authorized by the Court of Appeals in its September 25, 1987 decision, see, 831 F.2d at 326, except that plaintiffs' submissions were addressed to the school defendants rather than to the District Court, and except further that plaintiffs' submissions were not limited to student assignments but pertained also to other matters such as the condition and consolidation of schools, availability of textbooks, proposals of parent groups, etc. It was also in the nature of reasonable post-judgment monitoring, see Brewster v. Dukakis, 786 F.2d 16, 19 (1st Cir. 1986); Garrity v. Sununu, 752 F.2d 727, 738-39 (1st Cir. 1984), whereby plaintiffs sought and obtained assurance that the desegregation already achieved did not unravel to their disadvantage. Failure to Enjoin CCP Plaintiffs' application regarding services in connection with their unsuccessful attempt by motion filed May 16 15, 1989 to enjoin establishment of the CCP rests also on an additional basis: defendants obligation under paragraph (2) of the Final Orders and 42 u.s.c. 1983 generally to avoid resegregation of Boston's public schools. Plaintiffs contend that some of the CCP's provisions were objectionable on those grounds and that their efforts to change or eliminate objectionable provisions met with substantial if partial success. Plaintiffs point to various revisions in the new Plan made by defendants which had the effect of blunting plaintiffs' objections prior to the Court hearings on their motion. For example, the BSC modified a formula objectionable to plaintiffs for calculating relevant zone racial-ethnic percentages so as to exclude from the calculation students unavailable for assignment to zone schools. For another, the CCP as drafted would have reduced desegregation in East Boston, until the BSC approved a proposal by plaintiffs to permit black students from outside the North Zone to attend schools in East Boston on a space-available basis. On the other hand, plaintiffs' proof of likely resegregation fell short of demonstrating irreparable harm to the plaintiff class or an intent by defendants to turn back the clock to the era of de jure segregation. Quite the opposite: defendants' acceptance of changes sought by plaintiffs, together with other evidence, satisfied the Court that defendants' good faith in promoting desegregation remained strong. Hence plaintiffs' motion for an injunction was denied. Should plaintiffs nevertheless recover fees for time 17 spent by their attorneys (totalling 114.83 hours) preparing and arguing their motion for an injunction? Yes, in our opinion, principally because the claims presented in plaintiffs' motion were essentially an extension of claims they had been advocating throughout the previous decade and were interconnected with claims as to which plaintiffs prevailed. The law in this area has been well settled since first explicated in Hensley, 461 U.S. 424. It has been construed repeatedly in cases in this circuit. See,~, Lipsett, 975 F.2d at 940-41; Exeter-West Greenwich Regional School Dist. v. Pontarelli, 788 F.2d 47 (1st Cir. 1986f; Aubin v. Fudala, 782 F.2d 287 (1st Cir. 1986). Where claims presented by plaintiffs in a civil rights suit are related and plaintiffs have won substantial relief, attorneys fees under 1988 should not be reduced because of a discrete unsuccessful claim by plaintiffs. In the instant case, plaintiff