Lattishaw v. District of Columbia

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HAWA LATTISHAW, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Civil Action No. 25 - 1968 (LLA) DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant. MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Plaintiffs Hawa and Meygan Lattishaw brought this action against the District of Columbia to recover attorney’s fees and costs incurred in administrative proceedings against the District of Columbia Public Schools (“DCPS”) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), 20 U.S.C. § 1400 et seq., and D.C. Code § 38-2571.03(7). ECF No. 1. After the parties were unable to settle their dispute without the court’s intervention, the Lattishaws filed a motion seeking $158,775.58 in fees and costs. ECF No. 10. For the following reasons, the court grants the motion in part and denies it in part. I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY Hawa Lattishaw is the parent of Meygan Lattishaw, a student diagnosed with a learning disability that entitled her to educational services under the IDEA. ECF No. 1 ¶¶ 5-6. Hawa Lattishaw brought an administrative action on behalf of Meygan in February 2025. Id. ¶ 11; see ECF No. 10-1. The Lattishaws argued that DCPS had denied Meygan a free adequate public education (“FAPE”) during the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years due to substantive problems with her school placement, the implementation of her Individualized Education Plan (“IEP”), and DCPS’s procedural failure to provide Hawa full access to Meygan’s educational records. ECF No. 10-1, at 20-27. 1 As relief, the Lattishaws requested that the hearing officer declare that DCPS had denied Meygan a FAPE, conclude that their unilateral placement of Meygan in private school was warranted and order DCPS to reimburse them for Meygan’s private-school tuition for both school years, direct DCPS to update Meygan’s IEP, order DCPS to provide Meygan compensatory education, and declare that Meygan’s private school was her current educational placement under the IDEA. Id. at 20. A hearing officer made a final determination on May 28, 2025. Id. at 29. He noted that the Lattishaws had withdrawn their procedural claim after the first day of the hearing and that they had not put on any “evidence to support compensatory education relief.” Id. at 32 & n.2. The hearing officer concluded that DCPS had violated the IDEA by denying Meygan a FAPE during the 2024-2025 school year, but not during the 2023-2024 school year. Id. at 43-50. He accordingly found that the Lattishaws had not “acted unreasonably” in unilaterally continuing Meygan’s placement in a private school for the 2024-2025 school year. Id. at 52. The hearing officer ordered DCPS to reimburse the Lattishaws for the cost of “tuition and related expenses” for Meygan’s attendance at the private school for the 2024-2025 school year but denied “[a]ll other relief requested by the [Lattishaws].” Id. at 53. In June 2025, the Lattishaws filed this suit against the District seeking attorney’s fees and costs. ECF No. 1. The parties engaged in settlement negotiations from September 2025 until January 2026, at which point they notified the court that they had been unable to reach a resolution. See ECF Nos. 7 to 9, 11, 13, 15. The Lattishaws filed a motion seeking $158,775.58 in attorney’s 1 When citing to ECF Nos. 10-1 and 10-2, the court uses the page numbers generated by CM/ECF rather than any internal pagination. 2 fees and costs, ECF No. 10, which they have since reduced to $158,738.18, see ECF No. 14, at 8. The District opposes the motion in part, contending that the Lattishaws are only entitled to $52,082.50 in fees and costs. ECF No. 12, at 16. II. LEGAL STANDARDS A. Attorney’s Fees In any action under the IDEA, a district court “in its discretion, may award reasonable attorneys’ fees as part of the costs . . . to a prevailing party who is the parent of a child with a disability.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B)(i)(I). “Courts follow a two-pronged inquiry to determine attorneys’ fees under the IDEA by, first, determining if the party seeking fees is a ‘prevailing party’ and then determining what fees are ‘reasonable.’” Robinson v. District of Columbia, 61 F. Supp. 3d 54, 58 (D.D.C. 2014) (quoting 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B)(i)(I)). To assess whether the requested fees are reasonable, the court must (1) “determine the ‘number of hours reasonably expended in litigation,’” and (2) “set the ‘reasonable hourly rate.’” Eley v. District of Columbia, 793 F.3d 97, 100 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (quoting Save Our Cumberland Mountains, Inc. v. Hodel, 857 F.2d 1516, 1517 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (en banc)). The plaintiff bears the burden of proving the reasonableness of the hours expended and of the requested hourly rate, “and the opposing party remains ‘free to rebut a fee claim.’” Id. (quoting Covington v. District of Columbia, 57 F. 3d 1101, 1107-08 (D.C. Cir. 1995)); see Rawlings v. District of Columbia, No. 24-CV-2122, 2025 WL 1432278, at *2 (D.D.C. May 19, 2025). B. Expert Fees While the IDEA does not permit a prevailing party to recover fees for the use of expert witnesses in IDEA proceedings, see Arlington Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Murphy, 548 U.S. 3 291, 300 (2006), the “court, in its discretion, may award reasonable expert witness fees as part of the costs to a prevailing party” under District of Columbia law in certain circumstances, D.C. Code § 38-2571.03(7)(A). An award of expert fees may not exceed $6,000, see D.C. Code § 38-2571.03(7)(B), and the prevailing party “bears the burden of establishing that the experts’ rates are reasonable and ‘based on rates prevailing in the community in which the action or proceeding arose for the kind and quality of services furnished,’” Wright v. District of Columbia, No. 19-CV-2818, 2019 WL 4737699, at *6 (D.D.C. Sep. 28, 2019) (quoting D.C. Code § 38-2571.03(7)(B)). III. DISCUSSION A. Attorney’s Fees The District does not contest that the Lattishaws are the prevailing party and are thus entitled to attorney’s fees under the IDEA. See ECF No. 12, at 3. Instead, the District argues that the number of hours expended, id. at 11-16, and requested hourly rate, id. at 4-11, are unreasonable. The court agrees with some of the District’s arguments and reduces both the hours expended and the hourly rate. 1. Reasonable hours expended A plaintiff bears the initial burden in demonstrating the number of reasonable hours expended. See Eley, 793 F.3d at 100. “[D]etailed invoices that show how much time [the plaintiff’s counsel] spent on specific tasks suffice to enable courts to independently determine the reasonableness of hours claimed.” Parks v. District of Columbia, 895 F. Supp. 2d 124, 129 (D.D.C. 2012). “If a party satisfies this burden, the number of hours billed is presumed reasonable, and ‘the burden [] shifts to the [opposing party] to rebut this presumption.’” White v. District of 4 Columbia, No. 24-CV-769, 2025 WL 2049220, at *1 (D.D.C. July 22, 2025) (second alteration in original) (quoting Dobbins v. District of Columbia, No. 16-CV-1789, 2017 WL 4417591, at *3 (D.D.C. Sep. 29, 2017)). A district court “shall reduce” the amount of fees awarded when the court finds that “the time spent and legal services furnished were excessive considering the nature of the action.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(F)(iii). “The court may, for example, reduce the fee award for inadequate billing judgment, for hours billed unrelated or unnecessary to the litigation, for statutorily non-reimbursable time, or for double-billing.” Joaquin v. District of Columbia, 210 F. Supp. 3d 64, 72 (D.D.C. 2016) (citations omitted). As an initial matter, the court finds that the hours billed by the Lattishaws’ counsel are presumptively reasonable. The Lattishaws have provided a detailed invoice describing the nature of billed tasks and hours billed, see ECF No. 10-1, at 56-70, and the Lattishaws’ attorneys attest that the invoice reflects accurate and contemporaneous records of their time billed, see ECF No. 10-2, at 2-3, 7, 11, 14-15. The District thus bears the burden of rebutting the Lattishaws’ presumptively reasonable hours. The District argues that the Lattishaws’ request for attorney’s fees should be reduced on five different grounds. The court addresses each in turn: a. Fernando Roldan’s practice prior to D.C. Bar admission First, the District seeks to cut attorney Fernando Roldan’s hours for time billed before he was licensed to practice in the District. ECF No. 12, at 12. In particular, the District points out that Mr. Roldan was admitted to the D.C. Bar in July 2025 but billed 27 hours before then. Id. In response, the Lattishaws argue that Mr. Roldan was practicing under D.C. Court of Appeals Rule 49(c)(8)(A), which allows a person “who is not a D.C. Bar Member” to “provide legal services in the District of Columbia” for fewer than “365 days from the start of the practice if” he (i) has a pending application to the D.C. Bar, (ii) is admitted in another United States jurisdiction, 5 (iii) is supervised by a D.C. Bar member who agrees to be jointly responsible for the quality of the work, and (iv) provides notice of his bar status and supervision in all business documents. During the period in which Mr. Roldan worked on this case, he met these requirements: he was admitted to the Connecticut Bar, ECF No. 10-2, at 7; ECF No. 14-1 ¶ 2; he had submitted an application for D.C. Bar membership in October 2024, ECF No. 14-1 ¶ 4; his work on the case was supervised by a D.C. Bar member, id. ¶ 6; and he did not issue or transmit any business documents such that notice regarding his supervised practice status was required, id. ¶ 7. To be sure, the District is correct that “[c]ase law indicates that an attorney may not be awarded attorneys’ fees for legal services rendered while unlicensed in the jurisdiction.” ECF No. 12, at 12 (quoting Agapito v. District of Columbia, 477 F. Supp. 2d. 103, 112 (D.D.C 2007)). But in the very case on which the District relies, the court concluded that the plaintiffs were entitled to attorney’s fees for the unlicensed attorney “who was in substantial compliance with Rule 49(c)(8).” Agapito, 477 F. Supp. 2d at 111; see id. at 118-19. The court thus concludes that the Lattishaws are entitled to recover fees for Mr. Roldan’s 27 hours of practice supervised in accordance with Rule 49(c)(8). b. Excessive time preparing the due process complaint Second, the District argues that the Lattishaws’ counsel “devoted excessive amounts of time to various tasks.” ECF No. 12, at 12. Specifically, the District takes issue with the 70.67 hours billed for the preparation of the administrative due process complaint, id., and suggests that “no more than 15 hours of time” should be recoverable, id. at 13. The District does not point to any cases in which a court identified a reasonable number of hours to spend on an IDEA due process complaint. Instead, it cites two non-IDEA cases in which courts deemed excessive the 24 hours and 18.4 hours that attorneys had spent preparing complaints under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), 5 U.S.C. § 552. ECF No. 12, at 12 (first citing Los Padres 6 ForestWatch v. U.S. Forest Serv., 775 F. Supp. 3d 353, 371 (D.D.C. 2025); then citing Elec. Priv. Info. Ctr. v. Fed. Bureau of Investigation, 80 F. Supp. 3d 149, 158 (D.D.C. 2015)). The Lattishaws respond that neither of these cases is persuasive because preparing an IDEA complaint, unlike preparing a FOIA complaint, is a fact-intensive process. ECF No. 14, at 5-6. As the Lattishaws explain,“[s]tudents have different backgrounds and the IDEA applies in a very fact dependent, individualized way.” Id. at 6. They accordingly argue that it takes time to understand and describe the “student’s particular history in order to prepare the description of the nature of the problem.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The court agrees that the fact-intensive nature of an IDEA complaint may often require more preparation than a FOIA complaint. But it ultimately agrees with the District that the Lattishaws’ counsel billed an excessive number of hours researching and preparing the complaint. The court estimates that attorney Kiran Hassan spent roughly forty hours of “research and preparation for the due process complaint,” ECF No. 10-1, at 59, and that Mr. Roldan also billed over twenty hours as “research and preparation for the due process complaint,” id. at 62. See id. at 57-62. The attorneys describe “preparation” as including record review, consideration of the parent’s concerns, discussion with an education advocate, and legal research. Id. at 59. Indeed, at least twenty of the hours billed went to pure “case law” or “statutory” research “into legal, academic, or other related issues in the case.” Id. at 61; see, e.g., id. at 57, 60-63. The Lattishaws’ argument about the student-specific nature of IDEA litigation has little purchase where such a substantial period of time was spent solely on legal research, especially when Ms. Hassan is an experienced IDEA attorney and the Lattishaws do not contend that the legal issues in this case were unusually difficult. See ECF No. 14, at 6 (arguing instead that the complaint took extensive time because of the factual depth of Meygan’s “decade in the school system” and “complex 7 educational needs”). Although the Lattishaws point out that “[n]o IDEA case is exactly like another, and a large amount of time is spent understanding a student’s particular history in order to prepare the description of the nature of the problem,” id. at 6 (internal quotation marks omitted), they do not explain why this case required such an unusual number of hours conducting legal research, see ECF No. 12, at 12 (explaining that “[t]he IDEA does not require much for a due process complaint; it must only contain the name of the child, the address of the residence of the child, the name of the school the child is attending, a description of the nature of the problem of the child, including facts relating to such problem, and a proposed resolution of the problem to the extent known and available to the party at the time”); see also 20 U.S.C. § 1415(b)(7)(A)(ii). In contrast, attorneys from the same firm that represents the Lattishaws also prepared the due process complaint in Rawlings v. District of Columbia, No. 24-CV-2122, 2025 WL 1432278 (D.D.C. May 19, 2025). See Pls.’ Mot. Att’y Fees Ex. 1, Rawlings v. District of Columbia, No. 24-CV-2122 (D.D.C. Jan. 3, 2025), ECF No. 7-1. In that complaint, counsel raised four distinct legal issues, including claims similar to those in the Lattishaws’ case that DCPS had denied the student a FAPE across two different school years by failing to provide the parents with access to records, by failing to provide certain services, and by developing two inadequate IEPs. Pls.’ Mot. Att’y Fees Ex. 1, at 14-19, Rawlings, No. 24-CV-2122 (D.D.C. Jan. 3, 2025), ECF No. 7-1. Here, counsel raised three distinct legal issues of similar complexity. See ECF No. 10-1, at 20-27. Yet the court’s review of the invoice in Rawlings indicates that primary counsel spent roughly ten hours researching and drafting the due process complaint, with another five or so hours of research and review conducted by other attorneys. Pls.’ Mot. Att’y Fees Ex. 1, at 54-81, Rawlings, No. 24-CV-2122, (D.D.C. Jan 3, 2025), ECF No. 7-1. To be sure, there may well be good reasons for variation in billing across different cases, even at the same firm. But the vast 8 discrepancy between the hours spent on the Lattishaws’ complaint and the hours spent on the complaint in Rawlings underscores the court’s conclusion that the time billed here was excessive. See Bond ex rel. K.M. v. Friendship Pub. Charter Sch. Bd. of Trs., No. 23-CV-367, 2023 WL 8710370, at *3 (D.D.C. Dec. 18, 2023) (deeming “excessive” and reducing by 50% counsel’s 28.9 hours spent preparing a 30-page IDEA due process complaint, “especially” because the “plaintiff’s counsel copied many portions of the complaint directly from [the student’s] educational record”); see also Kelsey v. District of Columbia, 219 F. Supp. 3d 197, 207 (D.D.C. 2016) (noting that the attorney spent 22.4 hours preparing an IDEA complaint and reducing 6.2 of those hours for other reasons). The court agrees with the District that the 70.67 hours of generic entries centered on research and preparation is excessive absent a specific explanation about unusual complexities presented by this case. The court thus reduces the number of hours billed by Ms. Hassan and Mr. Roldan in preparing the complaint by 75%. c. Duplicative work, case reviews, and training time Third, the District proposes reducing hours for four “duplicate time entries” on which multiple attorneys performed the same work, three “vague entries related to case or file reviews,” and a training that Ms. Hassan attended. ECF No. 12, at 13. The court disagrees with the District on the first two, but agrees on the third. Case meetings and peer review. On August 23, 2024, attorneys Roberta Gambale and Kiran Hassan both billed a half-hour initial case meeting between the two attorneys “to go over information shared at intake and case strategy moving forward including [the] need for [a] Notice of Unilateral Placement.” ECF No. 10-1, at 57. On September 25, 2024, they both billed a half-hour meeting “about [the] case status and moving forward with [the due process claim] given 9 parent’s concerns.” Id. at 60. In support of its argument for reduction, the District relies on a non-IDEA case in which the D.C. Circuit concluded that “unexplained duplication of work appear[ing] throughout the time records” was “excessive and redundant” and thus warranted a partial reduction, Role Models Am., Inc. v. Brownlee, 353 F.3d 962, 972 (D.C. Cir. 2004). ECF No. 12, at 13 (citing Role Models, 353 F.3d at 972). But two half-hour case meetings between attorneys in advance of filing a complaint does not strike the court as duplicative, let alone excessive or redundant. Rather, courts in this district routinely deem compensable similar and even more time-consuming collaboration in IDEA litigation. See, e.g., Rawlings, 2025 WL 1432278, at *5 (deeming appropriate similar meetings to ensure “compliance with the high standards” set by the IDEA and to accommodate the needs of the plaintiff’s family (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). The District also challenges as duplicative Ms. Gambale’s entries on February 25 and February 27, 2025. ECF No. 12, at 13. These entries amount to a total of 40 minutes that Ms. Gambale spent reviewing the due process complaint drafted by Ms. Hassan “to [e]nsure compliance with the high standards for complaints imposed by DCPS and the requirements of [the] IDEA.” ECF No. 10-1, at 62-63. This limited review of a colleague’s work is a far cry from the type of duplicative work that might warrant a reduction. Cf. Role Models Am., Inc., 353 F.3d at 972 (deeming time billed duplicative where “on three separate occasions[,] two individuals . . . billed time for filing the same brief”). The District’s suggestion that it is “redundant” for supervisory attorneys to review a draft flies in the face of standard litigation practice. ECF No. 12, at 11. Case review. Although the District’s one-sentence objection to three “vague entries related to case or file reviews” does not precisely identify which entries it challenges, id. at 13, the court 10 presumes that the District intends to challenge the twenty-minute case review meetings billed by Ms. Hassan and paralegal Heather Carter-Rimbach on August 30 and September 26, 2024, ECF No. 10-1, at 58, 60, and Ms. Hassan’s ninety-minute “[m]onthly file review” on October 11, id. at 60. Similar to the case-coordination meetings between Ms. Gambale and Ms. Hassan, “case file review charges are compensable.” Rawlings, 2025 WL 1432278, at *5 (collecting cases and holding that fifteen entries constituting case file review or case status meetings were compensable); see Mem. Op. at 6, Dorsett v. District of Columbia, No. 00-CV-212 (Sep. 13, 2000), ECF No. 26 (finding that “[b]i-weekly status reviews . . . evidence diligent legal representation, not unreasonable or excessive use of time, particularly when dealing with the challenges presented when litigating with the District of Columbia Public Schools”). The court sees nothing unreasonable about billing less than three hours for case review. Training time. The District also seeks a reduction for a training that Ms. Hassan attended on November 11, 2024. ECF No. 12, at 13-14. The District argues that “it is not reasonable for an attorney to expect a paying client to pay for training time and so the District should not be required to subsidize Ms. Hassan’s legal education.” Id. Ms. Hassan reports in the invoice that she “attended training on unilateral placements and researched some of the case law regarding unilateral placements and how to establish denials of [a] FAPE in such cases.” ECF No. 10-1, at 61. To be sure, the subject matter of that training relates to the Lattishaws’ case, in which the Lattishaws unilaterally placed Meygan in a private school and sought to establish that the District had denied her a FAPE. See ECF No. 10-1, at 20-27. But while it may be reasonable for an attorney to bill time spent learning about an unfamiliar area of law, it strikes the court as unreasonable for an attorney who has “practiced special education law nearly exclusively since 2011,” ECF No. 10, at 10, and has litigated over 100 cases, ECF No. 10-2, at 3, to bill her client 11 for a training about a core concept in IDEA law. Cf. Blackman v. District of Columbia, 56 F. Supp. 3d 19, 29 (D.D.C. 2014) (noting that while “even an expert in the field must keep up with the law in his or her area of practice,” a court “might well be concerned if non-experts were being compensated from public funds for ‘learning on the job’” (citation omitted)). And the Lattishaws do not even contest this challenge in their reply brief. See generally ECF No. 14. The court accordingly excludes the 3.5 hours that Ms. Hassan spent attending a training on a topic core to her claimed legal expertise. d. Resolution session Fourth, the District seeks reductions for time related to a resolution session. ECF No. 12, at 14. It is undisputed that the IDEA prohibits recovery for time spent on resolution sessions “conducted pursuant to [20 U.S.C. §] (f)(1)(B)(i).” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(D)(iii); see Rawlings, 2025 WL 1432278, at *6 (excluding entries preparing for resolution meeting and time spent discussing settlement offer); Howard v. Achievement Preparatory Acad. Pub. Charter Sch., No. 15-CV-199, 2016 WL 1212409, at *14 (D.D.C. Mar. 8, 2016) (excluding time for “preparing for, scheduling, discussing, attending, and debriefing from the resolution session”). But of the four dates containing entries to which the District objects, two were not billed at all, see ECF No. 10-1 at 64 (listing “NO CHARGE” for time spent scheduling and attending settlement discussions on March 7and March 12, 2025), and the Lattishaws have agreed to withdraw the request for $37.40 associated with scheduling a resolution meeting on February 28, 2025, ECF No. 14, at 8. That leaves the District’s challenge to two entries totaling fifty minutes billed on March 18, 2025 when Ms. Hassan “reviewed an email from DCPS requesting a mediation” and “talked to the parent about [the] request.” ECF No. 10-1, at 65. The District suggests that these entries relate to 12 the pre-hearing resolution session and are thus not compensable. ECF No. 12, at 14. But the resolution session in this case occurred on March 12, 2025, prior to the challenged entry. ECF No. 10-1 at 29-30. Mediation under the IDEA is governed by 20 U.S.C. § 1415(e), whereas the resolution sessions for which fee recovery are prohibited are governed by Section 1415(f)(1)(B). The District thus errs in asking the court to discount the fifty minutes billed on March 18, 2025 in which counsel engaged with the District’s request for mediation. e. Reduction due to partial success Fifth, the District argues that the court should reduce the ultimate fee award by 40% because the Lattishaws prevailed only partially on their claims in the administrative proceeding. ECF No. 12, at 14-16. The Lattishaws do not dispute that they prevailed only in part, but they argue that a full fee award is still appropriate because they obtained “excellent results” and prevailed on one of two interrelated substantive claims. ECF No. 14, at 8-9. As a fallback, they argue that a 10% reduction would be warranted if the court deemed a reduction necessary. Id. at 9-10. The court concludes that a 30% reduction due to partial success is warranted. The Supreme Court has explained that “[w]here a plaintiff has obtained excellent results, his attorney should recover a fully compensatory fee,” and a fee award “should not be reduced simply because the plaintiff failed to prevail on every contention raised in the lawsuit.” Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 435 (1983). “[O]n the other hand,” if “a plaintiff has achieved only partial or limited success, the product of hours reasonably expended on the litigation as a whole . . . may be an excessive amount,” “even where the plaintiff’s claims were interrelated, nonfrivolous, and raised in good faith.” Id. at 436. “[N]o precise rule or formula” dictates how courts should account for partial success. Id. Typically, if a plaintiff’s “claims share a common core of facts or are based on related legal 13 theories, ‘[m]uch of counsel’s time will be devoted generally to the litigation as a whole, making it difficult to divide the hours expended on a claim-by-claim basis.’” Harrell ex rel. J.W. v. District of Columbia, No. 23-CV-3611, 2024 WL 3640033, at *5 (D.D.C. Aug. 2, 2024) (alteration in original) (quoting Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435). In many such cases, as here, counsel’s invoice will not make clear which hours were spent preparing which claims. See Daniel v. District of Columbia, 174 F. Supp. 3d 532, 552 (D.D.C. 2016) (noting that the “plaintiffs’ fee invoice would not equip the undersigned to sever hours devoted to particular claims even if that were desirable”); Wilhite v. District of Columbia, 110 F. Supp. 3d 77, 88 (D.D.C. 2015) (same). In these cases, “it is more appropriate to reduce the full award amount by taking a holistic approach that looks at the claims brought and the overall relief received.” Daniel, 174 F. Supp. 3d at 552. “[O]nly when the unsuccessful claim is based on a different set of facts and a different legal theory [does] Hensley require[] that the fees pertaining to the unsuccessful claim be disallowed.” Medina v. District of Columbia, 864 F. Supp. 2d 13, 17 (D.D.C. 2012). As noted supra pp. 1-2, the Lattishaws winnowed their requests between their administrative complaint and the hearing. Specifically, the Lattishaws withdrew their claim about a procedural violation concerning Hawa’s access to Meygan’s records and provided no evidence at the hearing to support their claim for compensatory education. ECF No. 10-1, at 32 & n.2. Accordingly, the only two issues the hearing officer considered were (1) whether DCPS denied Meygan a FAPE for the 2023-2024 school year, such that her unilateral placement in a private school was justified and the Lattishaws were entitled to reimbursement; and (2) whether DCPS denied Meygan a FAPE for the 2024-2025 school year, such that her unilateral placement in private school was justified and the Lattishaws were entitled to reimbursement. Id. at 31. The hearing officer agreed with the Lattishaws that DCPS had denied Meygan a FAPE during the 2024-2025 14 school year and directed DCPS to reimburse the Lattishaws for Meygan’s private school tuition for that school year only. Id. at 53. 2 The District argues that a 40% reduction in fees is appropriate because the Lattishaws prevailed only on their claim as it concerned tuition reimbursement the 2024-2025 school year, having withdrawn their claim about a procedural violation, having abandoned their claim for compensatory education, and having lost on their claim for tuition reimbursement for the 2023-2024 school year. ECF No. 12, at 15-16. At the outset, the court does not find it appropriate to reduce fees based on issues—namely, the procedural violation and the request for compensatory education—that the Lattishaws listed in the complaint but did not ultimately pursue. It is commonplace for plaintiffs to list every plausible claim and request for relief in a complaint and later make strategic decisions about which issues to pursue as the case proceeds. Accordingly, the court will focus on the Lattishaws’ partial success with respect to the primary relief requested in their complaint and addressed at the hearing: the requested reimbursement for Meygan’s private school tuition for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years. The hearing officer’s determination that the Lattishaws failed to demonstrate a denial of a FAPE for the 2023-2024 school year significantly reduced the scope of their overall success because it meant that they could only obtain tuition reimbursement for the 2024-2025 school year. And even as to the claim on which the Lattishaws prevailed—the inappropriateness of the 2024-2025 IEP and resulting denial of a FAPE—the hearing officer found that DCPS had met its burden of persuasion in demonstrating that (1) Meygan could participate in special and elective 2 Because Meygan would not be returning to the private school after the 2024-2025 school year, the hearing officer did not need to reach the Lattishaws’ requests about updating her IEP. ECF No. 10-1, at 52 n.4. 15 classes in the general educational setting, ECF No. 10-1, at 46; (2) Meygan did not require occupational therapy services in the 2024 IEP, id. at 47; and (3) Meygan did not require speech and language services in the 2024 IEP, id. at 48. Rather, the hearing officer based his determination that the 2024 IEP was inappropriate solely on DCPS’s failure “to include Social, Emotional, and Behavioral goals” and “to provide Behavior Support Services.” Id. at 49. Few attorneys, or clients, would describe such results as “excellent” when they prevailed on only one of two distinct claims and received only half of the tuition reimbursement sought. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435. The court thus rejects the Lattishaws’ contention that no reduction is necessary and turns to the appropriate fee reduction. As noted, the District requests a 40% overall reduction, ECF No. 12, at 16, while the Lattishaws argue that a 10% reduction would suffice, ECF No. 14, at 9-10. The Lattishaws point to three cases in this district where the court found that a reduction of 10 to 15% was appropriate. See ECF No. 14, at 9. In all three cases, the plaintiff won substantial relief and failed to obtain something ancillary or de minimis. First, in Taylor v. District of Columbia, 187 F. Supp. 3d 46 (D.D.C. 2016), the plaintiff argued that DCPS had denied the student a FAPE on four different theories, of which the hearing officer credited two. Id. at 55. The hearing officer awarded substantial relief, including compensatory education and full-time placement in a private school, but declined to award the “‘wrap around’ services” that the plaintiff sought, namely, “therapeutic transport, outside counseling, and therapeutic recreation.” Id. at 55-56 (citation omitted). The court explained that because the plaintiff “prevailed on the most significant aspects of her claims but her relief was limited in comparison to the proceeding as a whole,” a 10% reduction was appropriate. Id. at 56. 16  Next, in Brown v. District of Columbia, 80 F. Supp. 3d 90 (D.D.C. 2015), the plaintiff similarly presented four claims and “technically” lost on two. Id. at 101. But one of the “lost” claims was anomalous because the hearing officer appeared to deny the plaintiff’s request for tuition reimbursement because the nonpublic school had accepted the plaintiff “without conditioning his attendance on an agreement that his parents would pay—a fortuity rather than a lack of merit of [the] [p]laintiff’s claim.” Id. The court reduced the total fee award by 10% despite the “two unsuccessful requests for relief, only one [of which] was substantive,” because the plaintiff “prevailed on the most important aspects of his claims” and because of “the de minimis nature of his procedural loss.” Id. Finally, in Platt v. District of Columbia, 168 F. Supp. 3d 253 (D.D.C. 2016), the court concluded that a 15% reduction was appropriate where the plaintiff obtained “significant relief,” including “hundreds of hours of compensatory education as well as the option of a full-time non-public placement,” but did not prevail on her requests for a certain educational placement and “‘wrap around’ services,” such as “therapeutic transport, individual and family counseling, medication management, and therapeutic recreation.” Id. at 264-65; see Burks v. District of Columbia, No. 18-CV-2726, 2019 WL 2189488, at *10 (D.D.C. Apr. 6, 2019) (deeming appropriate a 10% reduction where the plaintiff’s “substantial success”—“obtaining . . . additional assessments, a new IEP, a change in placement, and compensatory education”—significantly outweighed the fact that the hearing officer declined to order that DCPS change the student’s placement to a nonpublic school), report and recommendation adopted, 2019 WL 2185371 (D.D.C. May 1, 2019). On the other side of the ledger, the District points to two cases in which the court found a 50% fee reduction appropriate. See ECF No. 12, at 15. First, in Harrell, the plaintiff sought 17 (1) speech language therapy, (2) occupational therapy, and (3) a remedy for a procedural violation—the District’s alleged failure to provide the parent an opportunity to participate in an IEP meeting regarding the student’s need for a certain service. 2024 WL 3640033, at *1. The hearing officer found for the plaintiff on only the first issue and awarded compensatory education. Id. The court concluded that a 50% reduction was appropriate for that partial victory, primarily by looking to the number of issues on which the plaintiff had prevailed relative to the number of claims raised. Id. at *7 (collecting cases and explaining that the plaintiffs had “succeeded on one of three issues” and that “[c]ourts have reduced fees by 50% or more in similar circumstances”). Second, in Davis v. District of Columbia, No. 15-CV-1194, 2018 WL 6181736 (D.D.C. Nov. 27, 2018), the plaintiff the plaintiff sought (1) compensatory education, (2) an order reinstating her eligibility for special education, and (3) an order that DCPS fund or conduct further disability evaluations. Id. at *1. The court ruled against the plaintiff on the first issue, ordered a remand on the second issue, and ruled for the plaintiff on the third issue. Id. The hearing officer eventually ordered that DCPS fund or conduct additional disability assessments, but he did not find that DCPS had denied the student a FAPE, nor did he order compensatory education or reinstatement of eligibility for special education. Id. Evaluating the subsequent motion for fees, the court explained that “[o]btaining the additional evaluations” was “a significant form of relief” and that the plaintiff’s “challenge to the hearing officer’s conclusion that termination of those services was appropriate was meritorious enough to warrant a remand.” Id. at *3. But the court acknowledged that the plaintiff was unsuccessful in demonstrating that the District had denied the plaintiff a FAPE or that the District was obligated to provide compensatory education. Id. In light of that “mixed bag” of results, the court determined that a 50% reduction was appropriate. Id. 18  The Lattishaws’ case presents a “mixed bag” closer to Harrell or Davis than to Taylor, Brown, or Platt. In Taylor, the relief denied was nearly de minimis: the student was awarded compensatory education and placement in private school and denied only a few additional “wrap around” services. 187 F. Supp. 3d at 55-56 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In Brown, too, the court emphasized the “de minimis nature of [the plaintiff’s] procedural loss” and found that the plaintiff “prevailed on the most important aspects of his claim.” 80 F. Supp. 3d at 101. And in Platt, the court underscored that, although the plaintiff lost on five of eight legal issues and failed to obtain certain services, she “obtained significant relief” including “hundreds of hours of compensatory education as well as the option of a full-time non-public placement.” 168 F. Supp. 3d at 264. Here, the Lattishaws’ two substantive claims centered on their request for tuition reimbursement for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years. See ECF No. 10-1, at 20-25. The hearing officer denied half of the requested tuition—much more than a de minimis or tangential loss. Nevertheless, the 50% reductions awarded in Harrell and Davis strike the court as unreasonably steep in this case. The court in Harrell placed a heavy emphasis on the number of issues on which the plaintiff prevailed, 2024 WL 3640033, at *7, whereas the Supreme Court has instructed district courts to focus on the “overall relief” sought and received, Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435. And the court in Davis described the plaintiff’s results as “middling,” as the plaintiff had obtained access to additional assessments but no actual compensatory education or additional services. 2018 WL 6181736, at *3. Although the Lattishaws did not receive all the relief they sought either, they did receive significant monetary compensation, which strikes the court as a more tangible form of success than the Davis plaintiff’