Case 5:11-cv-00788-OLG-JES-XR Document 194-1 Filed 09/25/13 Page 1 of 5 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS SAN ANTONIO DIVISION WENDY DAVIS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. CIVIL ACTION NO. 5:11-cv-00788-OLG-JES-XR STATE OF TEXAS, et al., [Lead Case] Defendants. LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS (LULAC) Plaintiffs, CIVIL ACTION NO. v. 5:11-cv-00855-OLG-JES-XR [Consolidated Case] RICK PERRY, et al, Defendants. DECLARATION OF LUIS ROBERTO VERA, JR. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1746, I, Luis Roberto Vera, Jr., declare that: 1. I am one of the attorneys and the lead attorney who represented Plaintiffs League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) et al, (hereafter Plaintiffs ) in the above-
Case 5:11-cv-00788-OLG-JES-XR Document 194-1 Filed 09/25/13 Page 2 of 5 captioned case. I make this Declaration in support of the Plaintiffs motion for an award of attorneys fees and expenses. 2. I received a Juris Doctor degree from Western New England College School of Law in 1992 and a Bachelors of Arts from Saint Mary s University in 1988. I am a member of the State Bar of Texas. I am also a member of the bar of the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth and D. C. Circuits, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. 3. Following my graduation from law school, from 1992 until the present I have served as a trial attorney for the League of United Latin American Citizens (hereinafter LULAC). LULAC is the largest and oldest Latino advocacy and civil rights organization in the United States and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. For the last twenty-one years of my service at LULAC I assisted and or tried Voting Rights cases and have been involved in negotiations, meetings and briefings with the Voting rights Section of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division exclusively on cases involving federally protected voting rights. I have been the national General Counsel in charge of or overseeing all litigation for LULAC including this case. 4. From January 1995 to the present, I have served as an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at St. Mary s University in San Antonio, Texas, where I taught and lectured Constitutional Law, Voting Rights Law, Redistricting and issues involving the political process. I have been a guest lecturer at various Universities on voting rights and redistricting including 2
Case 5:11-cv-00788-OLG-JES-XR Document 194-1 Filed 09/25/13 Page 3 of 5 the University of Texas (Austin) (San Antonio) (El Paso), Columbia University (New York City), Western New England College School of Law (Massachusetts), John Marshall Law School (Chicago) and various organizations. In 2012, I also served as an Adjunct Professor at St. Mary s University wherein I was asked to teach a course on civic engagement which included voting rights, election law, immigration reform and the political process 5. My private practice is both as a trial attorney and appeals in both state and federal court including the areas of voting rights, campaign finance and redistricting. My hourly rate is $400 per hour, given the complexity and novelty of the issues, and the high visibility and importance of the case and my twenty-one experience in this area of the law. 6. I have reviewed the summary of hours that I have expended in this case that is attached to this Declaration as Exhibit A, and that summary is true and accurate. The summary of hours attached as Exhibit A is based on contemporaneous records of the activities in the case maintained as business records in my law office. The hours expended were necessary in rendering legal services to the LULAC Plaintiffs in this case. I also have reviewed the listing of expenses included within Exhibit A. Those expenses were out of pocket expenses necessarily incurred by me to conduct the litigation in this case, and are of the type normally billed by me (and other law firms) to fee-paying clients. 7. Counsel for the LULAC Plaintiffs has exercised reasonable billing judgment in this case. For example, I have excluded over 40 hours for which I could be compensated. Moreover, although at least two other attorneys worked on this case as my co-counsel, there are no excessive, redundant, or unnecessary hours included in the time detailed in this request for an award of attorneys fees, in fact no extra billing hours are included for their time. 3
Case 5:11-cv-00788-OLG-JES-XR Document 194-1 Filed 09/25/13 Page 4 of 5 8. I also have reviewed the time records (and expense listings) for work performed by my expert, George Korbel. All of the work in the Declarations of George Korbel were necessary to the litigation of this case and were not duplicative of any of the work I did or any of the expenses I incurred. I made a conscientious effort to avoid duplication of work by agreeing, in advance, with my counsel for Wendy Davis on a division of labor in those instances where more than one attorney worked on the case simultaneously. I also carefully monitored expenses to insure that only necessary costs were incurred. 9. Since I am a solo practitioner with no litigation support staff, I retained others to provide me with litigation support throughout this case. I have employed other staff in prior cases to provide me with legal support and mapping services. To maximize efficiency and reduce the number of attorney hours counsel would work on this case, I delegated to them numerous litigation tasks, including preparation and copying of exhibits, deposition summaries, data gathering, map analysis and preparation and analysis of redistricting plans. I have not billed for any of these services as they were modest compared to Congressional and State House redistricting trials in the redistricting trial in Perez v. Perry. The legal support and mapping services rendered to my law firm by the support staff were absolutely essential to my ability to maintain this action and all work performed by them was undertaken at my direction and under my constant supervision and control. 10. To further reduce the number of attorney hours needed to litigate this case, I requested that the legal support team serve as a case/client coordinator for me to undertake all logistics and facilitate communications to the client group. Ongoing communications with clients in a case of this nature, given the impending election deadlines we faced as well as the size and geographic diversity of the client group, were necessary and the support staff in doing 4
Case 5:11-cv-00788-OLG-JES-XR Document 194-1 Filed 09/25/13 Page 5 of 5 that coordination and communication with the clients was the most cost-effective way of fulfilling those requirements. 1 11. There is absolutely not a single minute reflected in the time sheets that was not performed in the past two years since this litigation began. 11. I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct. Dated: September 24, 2013 /s/ Luis Roberto Vera, Jr. LUIS ROBERTO VERA, JR. CEERTIFICATE OF SERVICE This certifies that a true and correct copy of the foregoing is being sent to all parties in this case by facsimile transmission and each party will also receive a copy through the electronic filing system utilized by the federal courts. September 24, 2013 /s/ Luis Roberto Vera, Jr. 1 The Texas Rules of Professional Conduct and Ethics require lawyers to keep their clients reasonably informed about the case and to comply promptly with clients requests for information about the status of the case. This obligation includes providing clients with status reports on the lawsuit as well as communications from other parties that may significantly affect settlement or resolution of the case. See Texas Rules of Professional Conduct (Rule 1.03). 5