Establishing Private Attorney General Doctrine

From its initial launch in early 1972, CLIPI realized that, among the most vital reforms needed to allow public interest law practice to survive and prosper was establishing the “private attorney general” doctrine as a basis for a court to award attorney’s fees in  successful cases that have benefitted the public. 

In the early 1970s, only a few federal statutes, like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,  expressly authorized courts to award fees to the prevailing public interest attorney. Early efforts at the federal level to establish a court’s equitable power to award fees under the private attorney general doctrine ended when the US Supreme Court issued its 1975 Alyeska opinion determining that no such equitable authority existed. CLIPI attorneys thereupon worked closely with the Senate Judiciary Committee as it was processing the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Award Act of 1976, to enact section 1988 as the basis for fee awards to prevailing parties in federal civil rights litigation. 

At the state level, CLIPI attorneys focused their efforts on both the courts’ equitable powers and its statutory powers. In the LA County general plan litigation, CLIPI successfully obtained a court awarded fee under the “substantial benefit doctrine,” the  equitable doctrine that was the precursor to the private attorney general doctrine. CLIPI attorneys then undertook a series of amicus briefs and California Supreme Court arguments that established the private attorney general equitable doctrine as a basis for fee awards in public interest cases that enforce the state constitution. Concurrently, CLIPI attorneys worked closely with California state legislators as they enacted Civil Procedure Code section 1021.5, codifying the private attorney general doctrine in state court cases. Finally, CLIPI attorneys successfully sought judicial opinions supporting fee awards in a  wide variety of private attorney general doctrine situations where “important rights” (such as environmental protection and civil rights) are enforced, and significant public benefits  are achieved. 

CLIPI itself became particularly successful in obtaining court-awarded fees. Under early IRS restrictions on public interest law firms (PILFs), they could receive only court awarded fees (not fees paid by a client) and even then, up to only one half of its budget. By the late 1970s, CLIPI had obtained more court awarded fees than all other PILFs nationally combined, and CLIPI successfully obtained an IRS ruling allowing it to receive fees beyond those allowed by the IRS limits. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, CLIPI continued to obtain fee awards supporting much of its legal work. Beyond CLIPI, of course, these critical statutory and equitable grounds for private attorney general doctrine fee awards have resulted in many