Today at the Court

The Court will hear oral arguments this morning in two cases.

In Alvarez v. Smith, it will consider whether the Due Process Clause provides individuals whose personal property was seized by government authorities pursuant to a state criminal forfeiture statute with the right to an interim probable-cause hearing before the actual forfeiture hearing; former Akin Gump summer associate Alexis Grant, a 3L at the University of Michigan Law School, discusses the case here.

In Perdue v. Kenny A., previewed yesterday by Akin Gump’s Scott Street, the Court will consider whether a reasonable attorney’s fee award under a federal fee-shifting statute can ever be enhanced based solely on quality of performance and results obtained when these factors already are included in the lodestar calculation.