Declaration of Jerry E. Martin on Attorneys' Fees — Moore v. Mount Zion, No. 3:22-cv-00965

Summary

A Declaration of Jerry E. Martin in Support of Plaintiff's Motion for Attorneys' Fees and Reimbursement of Expenses in Kiara Moore v. Mount Zion Baptist Church, Joseph W. Walker, III, and Stephaine Walker, Case No. 3:22-cv-00965, Document 64, filed 11/17/23, in the Middle District of Tennessee. Martin, a Tennessee attorney who served as United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee from 2010 until 2013, states that the time spent and rates charged by Plaintiff's Counsel are reasonable. The declaration gives 1,005 hours for Harris Legal Advisors LLC and 100.8 hours for SRVH through October 31, 2023, and hourly rates including $535 for Mr. Harris and $495 for Mr. Sabis. It states that Plaintiff's Counsel request reimbursement of $6,720.71 in costs.

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE

NASHVILLE DIVISION
KIARA MOORE, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
Vv. ) Case No. 3:22-cv-00965
) Judge Trauger
MOUNT ZION BAPTIST CHURCH, )
JOSEPH W. WALKER, III, and )
STEPHAINE WALKER, )
)
Defendants. )

DECLARATION OF JERRY E. MARTIN IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFF’S
MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS’ FEES AND REIMBURSEMENT OF EXPENSES

I, Jerry E. Martin, declare as follows:

1. I am over the age of 18 years old, and I am otherwise competent to make this
Declaration.
2. I am an attorney licensed by the Tennessee Bar and the managing partner at Barrett,

Johnston, Martin, & Garrison, PLLC (““BJMG”), at 200 31°t Ave N, Nashville, Tennessee 37203.
From 2010 until 2013, I served as the Presidentially-appointed United States Attorney for the
Middle District of Tennessee. Since leaving that position, I have been a partner at BJMG, where
I focus primarily on complex civil litigation including collective action wage and hour litigation,
False Claims Act litigation, securities class actions, and civil rights litigation.

3. I have been asked by the law firm of Sherrard Roe Voigt & Harbison, PLC
(“SRVH”) to state my opinion on whether the time expended, and rates charged, by Plaintiff's

Counsel are reasonable.

Case 3:22-cv-00965 Document64 Filed 11/17/23. Page 1of 7 PagelD #: 1063
4. I have reviewed the billing records of Harris Legal Advisors LLC through
November 1, 2023, as well as the billing records of Christopher C. Sabis of SRVH through the
same date.

5. In addition to these billing records, I have reviewed the following materials from
this litigation: the operative complaint; the Court’s September 18, 2023 discovery order, and
communications between Plaintiff's and Defendants’ Counsel concerning discovery.

6. I am providing this Declaration as a professional courtesy and have not charged for
my time associated with its preparation.

7. I submit this Declaration in Support of Plaintiff's Motion for Attorneys’ Fees and
Reimbursement of Expenses.

I. Resolution of the Case

8. It is my understanding Plaintiff originally was a salaried employee, before
Defendants demoted her to a part-time hourly position, effectively cutting her annual earnings in
half. Based on review of the record, Plaintiff's Counsel were able to settle this case within less
than a year of filing the initial complaint.

9. Based on my experience, to resolve this case so efficiently required perseverance
and significant effort by Plaintiff's Counsel. Claims such as Plaintiff's are risky to take on
contingency and require a significant level of skill and investment of time to properly litigate. I
understand that, while this case was resolved in a relatively short amount of time, Plaintiffs
Counsel were required to deftly navigate a difficult course of discovery and negotiation against
Defendants with significant resources and influence. From my experience, Plaintiff's Counsel’s

ability to resolve this case in such a short period of time under these circumstances is extraordinary.

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Case 3:22-cv-00965 Document64 Filed 11/17/23. Page 2 of 7 PagelD #: 1064
II. Background and Experience of the Attorneys Representing Plaintiff

10. It is my understanding that William D. Harris is the Managing Member of Harris
Legal Advisors LLC and has over 18 years of experience representing plaintiffs in private practice,
having prosecuted hundreds of single-plaintiff employment matters, all on a contingency basis.

11. It is my understanding that Ryan Wagenleitner has a combined 18 years of
professional experience, including 7 years of tax consulting experience with a Big-4 accounting
firm and 5 years of experience working in corporate finance for a Fortune 500 company in addition
to his legal experience. I understand that Mr. Wagenleitner’s legal experience encompasses
consumer class actions, data privacy class actions, securities fraud class actions, and shareholder
derivative suits.

12. Mr. Sabis served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of
Tennessee for nearly 9 years, where he focused on civil fraud investigations, primarily in the
healthcare sector, as well as representing the United States in a number of ADA investigations, for
which he earned a Certificate of Commendation from the Civil Rights Division of the Department
of Justice in 2012. His experience practicing in the Middle District of Tennessee and his
connections within the bar make him uniquely valuable as local counsel in this type of action.

Ill. Litigating the Case

13. From their respective billing records, I see that Harris Legal Advisors LLC has
worked a total of 1,005 hours through October 31, 2023, and SRVH has worked a total of 100.8
hours through the same date. It is my understanding that Mr. Sabis was the primary SRVH attorney
that worked on this case so as to minimize the time and expense of unnecessarily having additional
lawyers participating in calls, document review, and other aspects of this litigation. Based upon
the difficult posture taken by Defendants in this case during discovery and settlement negotiations,

the number of hours worked by Plaintiffs Counsel in this case is reasonable.

3
Case 3:22-cv-00965 Document64 Filed 11/17/23. Page 3 of 7 PagelD #: 1065
14, It is my understanding that Defendants, from the outset, used discovery as a method
of delay and obstruction. It is my understanding that Defendants’ Initial Disclosures contained
information Defendants knew was inaccurate, and that they failed to provide accurate contact
information for a critical witness, Dr. Shameka Fairbanks, who worked in the same department
with Plaintiff and who was interviewed by the EEOC during its investigation into Plaintiffs EEOC
Charges. It is also my understanding that Plaintiff’s Counsel requested accurate Initial Disclosures
from Defendants at least 7 times and they eventually had to acquire some of this information at
their own expense.

15. It is my understanding that Plaintiff's Counsel was also tasked with expending
significant time performing discovery-related tasks that should have been performed by
Defendants pursuant to the ESI Order in this case, including the identification of custodians and
search terms to collect, cull, and filter documents responsive to Plaintiff's RFPs.

16. Additionally, it is my understanding Plaintiff's Counsel was required to review a
voluminous cache of ESI, including thousands of text messages and voice memos in Plaintiff's
possession, many of which were already in Defendant Walker’s possession, and that Defendant
Mount Zion denied for months that it was in possession of these critical records.

17. From review of communications between Plaintiff's and Defendants’ Counsel, it
appears that Plaintiff made nine separate requests for conferences to discuss any ESI searches and
production of documents in an attempt to make discovery more efficient, but all these requests
were either ignored or rebuffed.

18. ‘It is my understanding that Plaintiff's Counsel were the driving force behind
complying with the Court’s scheduling order and keeping the Court apprised of the discovery

conflicts between the Parties, which the Court described as “excellent advocacy,” and the

4
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submissions, which were largely the product of Plaintiff's Counsel, being “one of the best briefs
the Court has received in some time.” (DE 53).

19. Based on my experience, while the 96 document requests made by Plaintiff's
Counsel is higher than it would be in an average case, Defendants’ dilatory conduct necessitated
Plaintiffs Counsels’ persistence in pursuing document productions. Moreover, based upon my
review of the record, Plaintiff's Counsel appears to have been the driving force in resolving these
discovery disputes. In my experience, the amount of time spent by Plaintiff's Counsel facilitating
discovery is reasonable and was necessary given the circumstances.

20. Additionally, it is my understanding that Defendants did not meaningfully
participate in settlement negotiations until shortly before the case settled. Their half-hearted
participation until that time prolonged the resolution of this action. I understand that during the
EEOC phase, Defendants offered $2,000, and that Defendants would not entertain Plaintiffs
demand which followed. I understand that following the EEOC’s finding of probable
discrimination, Defendants offered $58,000, and that after the negotiations mandated by the
Court’s scheduling order, Defendants actually lowered their post-EEOC offer.

21. I understand that Defendants only raised their settlement offer to $100,000 to entice
Plaintiff into private mediation after Defendants were ordered to produce financial and salary
records.

22. I also understand that, prior to this, Plaintiff had been willing to go to private
mediation conditioned on Defendants making a counter-offer to her demand, but Defendants
refused to provide a counter-offer for another two months.

23. Based on my experience, Plaintiff's Counsel properly estimated the value of

Plaintiff's case in relation to the settlement offers and made the correct decision to continue

5
Case 3:22-cv-00965 Document64_ Filed 11/17/23. Page 5 of 7 PagelD #: 1067
litigating the matter until Defendants finally made a meaningful offer to settle the case. One of the
consequences of a defendant’s failure to reach an early resolution in this type of matter is the
accumulation of attorneys’ fees by the plaintiff. Defendants could have resolved this matter much
sooner, saving considerable attorneys’ fees. From my experience, it appears that Defendants
refusal to meaningfully participate in settlement discussions further prolonged this case and
necessitated the expenditure of the hours put in by Plaintiff's Counsel.

IV. Billing Rates

24. Based on my own personal experience litigating FLSA cases and related actions, I
believe that the respective rates requested by Harris Legal Advisors and SRVH are reasonable.

25. From review of the billing records, Mr. Harris’s rate is $535 per hour, Mr. Sabis’s
rate is $495 per hour, Ms. Mohan’s rate is $475 per hour, Mr. Wagenleitner’s rate is $375 per hour,
Ms. Haston’s rate is $315 per hour, and paralegals are billed at $150 per hour.! These rates are in-
line with hourly rates typically approved in this district.

26. It is my understanding that Mr. Harris has reduced his hourly rate in this action by
$15 per hour to be more in line with partner-level attorney hourly rates approved in this District,
and that he is also foregoing other compensable time.

27. Likewise, Mr. Harris is reducing Mr. Wagenleitner’s hourly rate by $25 per hour
to be more in line with of-counsel and associate hourly rates in this district, and that Harris Legal
Advisors LLC is voluntarily foregoing $2,600 of Mr. Wagenleitner’s time. This amount does not

include other time spent by Mr. Wagenleitner on this matter that was not billed.

'Mr. Sabis and Ms. Mohan had lower rates for minimal amount of time they billed on this
matter in 2022. Those rates were also in-line with hourly rates typically approved in this district at
that time.

6
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28. | Mr. Sabis’s rate is imminently reasonable and comparatively lower than other
former-AUSAs with his level of experience.

29. Based on rates that I have been awarded in FLSA actions, these rates are in-line
and consistent with rates typically approved in the Middle District of Tennessee. Approval of the
rates requested here is appropriate and would encourage advocacy of a similar quality in future
cases.

V. Costs Are Reasonable

30. | Upon review of the bills for costs and expenses, I see that Plaintiff's Counsel are
collectively requesting reimbursement for $6,720.71.
31. | Based upon my experience, these costs and expenses are reasonable, and reflect

common costs in litigating a matter such as filing fees, service fees, and the like.

I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and accurate. Executed this

[@thtay of November, 2023, in Ly Le don (County), VM ash vill, TWCity and State).

Dated: November | v , 2023 Respectfully Submitted,

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Case 3:22-cv-00965 Document64 _ Filed 11/17/23 Page 7 of 7 PagelD #: 1069


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