King & Spalding Can’t Keep Attorneys’ Fees Calculations Sealed

“Potential competitive harm” isn’t a good enough reason to allow King & Spalding LLP to file its billing records under seal in its attempt to collect attorneys’ fees after winning in a public records case, a federal judge in Washington said Tuesday.

Disclosure of the firm’s billing rates, hours worked, and staffing strategies would hurt the firm without providing any benefit to the public, it argued.

But “the public interest in disclosure is arguably at its zenith when the fee demand is made against the public fisc,” Judge Amit P. Mehta said for the U.S. District Court for the District ...