Lawyer Bills L.A. $987,684 in Police Suit : Courts: The attorney won $44,000 award against Chief Daryl F. Gates and the officers who shot four robbers, killing three.

An attorney who won a $44,000 jury award for his clients in a civil rights case against Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and several of his officers has submitted a bill for legal fees that could cost the city nearly $1 million.

The bill, submitted by Stephen Yagman on behalf of himself and three other attorneys, brought immediate criticism from the city attorney’s office Wednesday.

Deputy City Atty. Don Vincent said the bill would total $987,684 if approved as submitted by Yagman to U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts. Vincent, who heads the unit that defends the city in police-related litigation, said he would challenge the proposed fees as being grossly excessive.

“Just under $1 million--it’s quite shocking,” Vincent said. “We are going to challenge it because we think it’s outrageous.”

Yagman defended the bill, which he submitted in the form of a motion to Letts, and called the criticism sour grapes.

“That’s the way the world works,” Yagman said. “Winning attorneys get paid reasonable fees by judges. . . . It’s no wonder they are unhappy; they are losers.”

Under federal regulations, attorneys for plaintiffs who win civil rights lawsuits against government agencies are allowed to charge opponents their legal fees.

After a trial that spanned three months, including interruptions, a jury last week found in favor of five plaintiffs in a suit against Gates and nine officers over a police shooting that left three robbers dead and a fourth wounded outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Sunland.

The plaintiffs--the surviving robber and relatives of the slain men--contended that members of the department’s Special Investigations Section used excessive force when they fired 35 times on the robbers Feb. 12, 1990. Their lawsuit contended that Gates was ultimately responsible for the shooting because he condoned excessive force in the department.

Jurors, some of whom later said they had trouble accepting the police version of the shooting, awarded nominal damages to the plaintiffs--$20,500 against Gates and the balance of the $44,042 award against the nine SIS officers who fired during the incident.

A judge sets legal fees in a civil rights case on the basis of the time an attorney spent on the case and an hourly wage. That wage is usually set by using hourly rates from the attorney’s prior cases as well as declarations from other civil rights attorneys on his or her skill and the complexity of the case.

In a 99-page motion to collect legal fees, Yagman said he spent 800 hours working on the McDonald’s case while three other attorneys involved put in a total of 683 hours. The hourly rates Yagman suggested for the attorneys range from $175 per hour for an attorney who spent the least time on the case up to $350 per hour for himself.

Vincent, who headed the unsuccessful defense of the case, said that under the civil rights guidelines, judges are also allowed to multiply fees based on complexity of a case and how much risk of losing an attorney took in bringing it to court.

He said Yagman has suggested that the fees in the McDonald’s case be doubled on that basis, bringing its potential total to $987,684--with about $560,000 going personally to Yagman.

Vincent has asked Letts to delay a hearing on the legal fees set for later this month so the charges can be investigated. He said he will seek to take Yagman’s deposition to question him about the hours he submitted.

“This is about double what we thought he would put in for--and even that would have been excessive,” Vincent said. “If he put in 800 hours, that’s 20 weeks of work. He didn’t put in 20 weeks of work.”

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said he asked the city attorney’s office to verify Yagman’s charges.

“We want to make sure we are not being ripped off,” Yaroslavsky said. “He is a fine lawyer and should be compensated for what he does. But only for what he does. It’s a lot of money. It would put 30 police officers on the street for a year.”

Yagman countered that he has fully documented the hours of his legal team and will be content to let Letts decide the issue. He said such fee disputes are routine in civil rights cases.

“This isn’t ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ ” he said. “Attorneys submit their time records and the judge decides. Mr. Vincent has to learn how to be a good loser because he is going to lose a lot more cases defending the LAPD.”