Court-appointed lawyer fee hearings
Stubbs v. Stubbs
In brief
- Where it stands
- Petition Pending
Awaiting an order on the petition
- What it’s about
- Micah Stubbs filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to review California rules that let a parent be charged for appointed-counsel fees based on written submissions, without a required live hearing, and that allegedly end the chance to contest the fees after counsel withdraws.
- What's at stake
- The unresolved dispute is whether California's process gave Stubbs a fair chance to contest appointed-counsel fees.
Summary: written with AI from the case record.
What it's about
The petition argues that this process violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of fair legal procedures.
The challenged process allows written opposition, but makes the fee payable within 45 days after entry; Stubbs says the later chance to seek a hearing can expire 30 days after counsel withdraws.
Question presented
1. Whether a State may, consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, require by local court rule that every application for payment of court-appointed counsel fees “shall be made ex parte,” with the application then resolved by default on the papers—after an opportunity for written opposition, but without any required case-specific live hearing—and the resulting fee obligation effective upon entry and payable within 45 days. 2. Whether a State denies procedural due process when, having authorized court-appointed counsel's fees to be imposed through that mandatory ex parte procedure, its rules then extinguish the only mechanism for redetermining the obligation thirty days after appointed counsel withdraws—so that the post-deprivation evidentiary hearing the parent was promised can lapse, and here did lapse, without ever being held, while every court holds review belongs somewhere else.
What happens next
The next step is for the Court to decide whether to hear the case. Oral argument is not scheduled and would not come before the Court agrees to take it.
Documents
Docket activity
New analysis added
AI analysis generated: Case Briefing
Case data updated: summary, question_presented, generation_metadata
Case data updated: question_presented, extraction_metadata
Brief added: Petition
More questions
- What happened to the later hearing option?
- Stubbs's petition says the 30-day period to seek a post-fee hearing expired after appointed counsel withdrew, without a hearing.
Sources
Primary materials from the Court and the parties. Grounded in docket records and cited sources. Official filings and opinions remain authoritative.