RICHLIN SECURITY SERVICE CO. v. CHERTOFF, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY

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RICHLIN SECURITY SERVICE CO. v. CHERTOFF,
SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the federal circuit
No. 06–1717. Argued March 19, 2008—Decided June 2, 2008
After prevailing against the Government on a claim originating in the
Department of Transportation’s Board of Contract Appeals, petitioner
(Richlin) filed an application with the Board for reimbursement of attor
ney’s fees, expenses, and costs, pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice
Act (EAJA). The Board concluded, inter alia, that Richlin was not
entitled to recover paralegal fees at the rates at which it was billed by
its law firm, holding that EAJA limited such recovery to the attorney’s
cost, which was lower than the billed rate. In affirming, the Federal
Circuit concluded that the term “fees,” for which EAJA authorizes re
covery at “prevailing market rates,” embraces only the fees of attor
neys, experts, and agents.
Held: A prevailing party that satisfies EAJA’s other requirements may
recover its paralegal fees from the Government at prevailing market
rates. Pp. 576–590.
(a) EAJA permits a prevailing party to recover “fees and other ex
penses incurred by that party in connection with” administrative pro
ceedings, 5 U. S. C. § 504(a)(1), including “the reasonable expenses of ex
pert witnesses, the reasonable cost of any study, analysis, engineering
report, test, or project . . . , and reasonable attorney or agent fees,”
and bases the amount of such fees on “prevailing market rates,”
§ 504(b)(1)(A). Because Richlin “incurred” “fees” for paralegal services
in connection with its action before the Board, a straightforward reading
of the statute demonstrates that Richlin was entitled to recover fees for
the paralegal services it purchased at the market rate for such services.
The Government’s contrary reading—that expenditures for paralegal
services are “other expenses” recoverable only at “reasonable cost”—
is unpersuasive. Section 504(b)(1)(A) does not clearly distinguish be
tween the rates at which “fees” and “other expenses” are reimbursed.
Even if the statutory text supported the Government’s dichotomy, it
would hardly follow that amounts billed for paralegal services should be
classified as “expenses” rather than as “fees.” Paralegals are surely
more analogous to attorneys, experts, and agents than to studies, analy
ses, reports, tests, and projects. Even if the Court agreed that EAJA

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limited paralegal fees to “reasonable cost,” it would not follow that the
cost should be measured from the perspective of the party’s attorney
rather than the client. By providing that an agency shall award a pre
vailing party “fees and other expenses . . . incurred by that party” (em
phasis added), § 504(a)(1) leaves no doubt that Congress intended the
“reasonable cost” of § 504(b)(1)(A)’s items to be calculated from the liti
gant’s perspective. It is unlikely that Congress, without even mention
ing paralegals, intended to make an exception of them by calculating
their cost from their employer’s perspective. It seems more plausible
that Congress intended all “fees and other expenses” to be recoverable
at the litigant’s “reasonable cost,” subject to the proviso that “reason
able cost” would be deemed to be “prevailing market rates” when such
rates could be determined. Pp. 576–580.
(b) To the extent that some ambiguity subsists in the statutory text,
this Court need look no further to resolve it than Missouri v. Jenkins,
491 U. S. 274, where the Court addressed a similar question with respect
to the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976—which provides
that a court “may allow the prevailing party . . . a reasonable attorney’s
fee as part of the costs,” 42 U. S. C. § 1988—finding it “self-evident” that
“attorney’s fee” embraced the fees of paralegals as well as attorneys,
491 U. S., at 285. EAJA, like § 1988, entitles certain parties to recover
“reasonable attorney . . . fees,” § 504(b)(1)(A), and makes no mention of
the paralegals, “secretaries, messengers, librarians, janitors, and others
whose labor contributes to the work product for which an attorney bills
her client,” 491 U. S., at 285. Thus, EAJA, like § 1988, must be inter
preted as using the term “attorney . . . fees” to reach fees for paralegal
services as well as compensation for the attorney’s personal labor, mak
ing “self-evident” that Congress intended that term to embrace parale
gal fees. Since § 504 generally provides for recovery of attorney’s fees
at “prevailing market rates,” it follows that paralegal fees must also be
recoverable at those rates. The Government’s contention that Jenkins
found paralegal fees recoverable as “attorney’s fee[s]” because § 1988
authorized no other recoverable “expenses” finds no support in Jenkins
itself, which turned not on extratextual policy goals, but on the “self
evident” proposition that “attorney’s fee[s]” had historically included
paralegal fees. Indeed, this Court rejected the Government’s interpre
tation of Jenkins in West Virginia Univ. Hospitals, Inc. v. Casey, 499
U. S. 83, concluding that a petitioner seeking expert witness fees under
§ 1988 could not rely on Jenkins for the proposition that § 1988’s “broad
remedial purposes” allowed recovery of fees not expressly authorized
by statute. Pp. 580–583.
(c) Even assuming that some residual ambiguity in the statutory text
justified resorting to extratextual authorities, the legislative history

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cited by the Government does not address the question presented and
policy considerations actually counsel in favor of Richlin’s interpreta
tion. Pp. 583–590.
472 F. 3d 1370, reversed and remanded.
Alito, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J.,
and Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined, in
which Scalia, J., joined except as to Part III–A, and in which Thomas,
J., joined except as to Parts II–B and III.
Brian Wolfman argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs was Scott L. Nelson.
Anthony A. Yang argued the cause for respondent. With
him on the brief were Solicitor General Clement, Acting
Assistant Attorney General Bucholtz, Deputy Solicitor Gen
eral Garre, Michael Jay Singer, and Michael E. Robinson.*
Justice Alito delivered the opinion of the Court.†
The question presented in this case is whether the Equal
Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 5 U. S. C. § 504(a)(1) (2006 ed.)
and 28 U. S. C. § 2412(d)(1)(A) (2000 ed.), allows a prevailing
party in a case brought by or against the Government to
recover fees for paralegal services at the market rate for
such services or only at their cost to the party’s attorney.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
limited recovery to the attorney’s cost. 472 F. 3d 1370
(2006). We reverse.
I
Petitioner Richlin Security Service Co. (Richlin) is a small
California proprietorship. In the early 1990’s, it was en
gaged by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service
*Amy Howe, Kevin K. Russell, Thomas C. Goldstein, Pamela S. Kar
lan, and Jeffrey L. Fisher filed a brief for the National Association of
Legal Assistants et al. as amici curiae urging reversal.
†Justice Scalia joins this opinion except as to Part III–A, and Jus
tice Thomas joins this opinion except as to Parts II–B and III.

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to provide guard services for detainees at Los Angeles Inter
national Airport. Through mutual mistake, the parties’ two
contracts misclassified Richlin’s employees under the Service
Contract Act of 1965, 41 U. S. C. § 351 et seq. The Depart
ment of Labor discovered the misclassification and ordered
Richlin to pay its employees back wages. Richlin responded
by filing a claim against the Government with the Depart
ment of Transportation’s Board of Contract Appeals (Board).
The claim sought reformation of the two contracts in order
to force the Government to make additional payments neces
sary to cover Richlin’s liability under the Service Contract
Act. Richlin prevailed after extensive litigation, and the
Board entered an award in its favor.
Richlin then filed an application with the Board for reim
bursement of its attorney’s fees, expenses, and costs pursu
ant to EAJA. Under EAJA, “[a]n agency that conducts an
adversary adjudication shall award, to a prevailing party
other than the United States, fees and other expenses in
curred by that party in connection with that proceeding, un
less the adjudicative officer of the agency finds that the posi
tion of the agency was substantially justified or that special
circumstances make an award unjust.” 5 U. S. C. § 504(a)(1).
In addition to its other fees and expenses, Richlin sought
$45,141.10 for 523.8 hours of paralegal work on its contract
claim and $6,760 for 68.2 hours of paralegal work on the
EAJA application itself.
The Board granted Richlin’s application in part. Richlin
Security Service Co. v. Department of Justice, Docket Nos.
3034E, 3035E, Contract Nos. WRO–06–90, WRO–03–91, 2005
WL 1635099 (June 30, 2005), App. to Pet. for Cert. 25a. It
found that Richlin met § 504(b)(1)(B)’s eligibility require
ments, see id., at 30a, and that the Government’s position
had not been “substantially justified” within the meaning of
§ 504(a)(1), id., at 32a. It concluded, however, that Richlin
was not entitled to recover its paralegal fees at the rates
(ranging from $50 per hour to $95 per hour) at which Richlin

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was billed by its law firm.1 See id., at 39a. The Board held
that EAJA limited recovery of paralegal fees to “the cost to
the firm rather than . . . the billed rate.” Ibid. Richlin had
not submitted any evidence regarding the cost of the parale
gal services to its law firm, see ibid., but the Board found
that “$35 per hour is a reasonable cost to the firm[,] having
taken judicial notice of paralegal salaries in the Washington
D. C. area as reflected on the internet,” id., at 42a–43a.
A divided panel of the Federal Circuit affirmed. 472
F. 3d 1370. The court construed the term “fees,” for which
EAJA authorizes recovery at “prevailing market rates,”
§ 504(b)(1)(A), as embracing only the fees of attorneys, ex
perts, and agents.2 See id., at 1374. The court declined to
follow the contrary decision of the Eleventh Circuit in Jean
v. Nelson, 863 F. 2d 759 (1988), aff ’d sub nom. Commissioner
v. Jean, 496 U. S. 154 (1990). It also distinguished this
Court’s decisions in Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U. S. 274 (1989),
and West Virginia Univ. Hospitals, Inc. v. Casey, 499 U. S.
83 (1991), reasoning that those cases involved a different
fee-shifting statute with different “ ‘goals and objectives.’ ”
472 F. 3d, at 1375–1377, 1379 (discussing the Civil Rights
Attorney’s Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U. S. C. § 1988). The
court instead found support for its interpretation in EAJA’s
legislative history, see 472 F. 3d, at 1381 (citing S. Rep.
No. 98–586 (1984) (hereinafter S. Rep.)), and in considera
tions of public policy, see 472 F. 3d, at 1380–1381.
Judge Plager dissented. He believed that the authorities
distinguished by the majority (particularly this Court’s deci
1 Richlin was actually billed for paralegal services at rates as high as
$135 per hour, but it amended its application to cap the fees at $95 per
hour. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 39a; Brief for Petitioner 9; Brief for
Respondent 4, n. 2.
2 Some agencies allow nonattorney representatives, known as “agents,”
to assist parties with the presentation of their cases. See n. 10, infra.
Richlin has never claimed that a paralegal may qualify as an “agent”
within the meaning of § 504(b)(1)(A).

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sions in Jenkins and Casey) were indistinguishable. He also
identified “sound policy reasons for . . . adopting the Supreme
Court’s take of the case, even if we thought we had a choice.”
472 F. 3d, at 1383.
Richlin petitioned for rehearing, pointing out that the ap
proach taken by the Eleventh Circuit in Jean had been fol
lowed by several other Circuits. See 482 F. 3d 1358, 1359
(CA Fed. 2007) (citing Role Models Am., Inc. v. Brownlee,
353 F. 3d 962, 974 (CADC 2004); Hyatt v. Barnhart, 315 F. 3d
239, 255 (CA4 2002); and Miller v. Alamo, 983 F. 2d 856,
862 (CA8 1993)). The panel denied rehearing over Judge
Plager’s dissent, and the full court denied rehearing en banc.
See App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a.
We granted certiorari. 552 U. S. 1021 (2007).
II
A
EAJA permits an eligible prevailing party to recover “fees
and other expenses incurred by that party in connection
with” a proceeding before an administrative agency. 5
U. S. C. § 504(a)(1). EAJA defines “fees and other expenses”
as follows:
“ ‘[F]ees and other expenses’ includes the reasonable ex
penses of expert witnesses, the reasonable cost of any
study, analysis, engineering report, test, or project
which is found by the agency to be necessary for the
preparation of the party’s case, and reasonable attorney
or agent fees (The amount of fees awarded under this
section shall be based upon prevailing market rates for
the kind and quality of the services furnished, except
that (i) no expert witness shall be compensated at a rate
in excess of the highest rate of compensation for expert
witnesses paid by the agency involved, and (ii) attorney
or agent fees shall not be awarded in excess of $125 per
hour unless the agency determines by regulation that an
increase in the cost of living or a special factor, such as

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the limited availability of qualified attorneys or agents
for the proceedings involved, justifies a higher fee.)”
§ 504(b)(1)(A).3
In this case, Richlin “incurred” “fees” for paralegal services
in connection with its contract action before the Board.
Since § 504(b)(1)(A) awards fees at “prevailing market rates,”
a straightforward reading of the statute leads to the conclu
sion that Richlin was entitled to recover fees for the para
legal services it purchased at the market rate for such
services.
The Government resists this reading by distinguishing
“fees” from “other expenses.” The Government concedes
that “fees” are reimbursable at “prevailing market rates,”
but it insists that “other expenses” (including expenses for
“any study, analysis, engineering report, test, or project”)
are reimbursable only at their “reasonable cost.” And in the
Government’s view, outlays for paralegal services are better
characterized as “other expenses” than as “fees.” The Gov
ernment observes that the second sentence of § 504(b)(1)(A),
which explains how to calculate awards for “fees,” refers to
attorneys, agents, and expert witnesses, without mentioning
paralegals. From this omission, the Government infers that
Congress intended to treat expenditures for paralegal serv
ices not as “fees” but as “other expenses,” recoverable at
“reasonable cost.”
We find the Government’s fractured interpretation of the
statute unpersuasive. Contrary to the Government’s con
tention, § 504(b)(1)(A) does not clearly distinguish between
3 Virtually identical fee-shifting provisions apply to actions by or against
the Government in federal court. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 2412(a)(1), (d)(2)(A).
The question presented addresses both §§ 504 and 2412, but the Federal
Circuit’s decision resolved only petitioner’s § 504 application, and the Gov
ernment avers (without challenge from Richlin) that § 2412 “is not at issue
in this case.” Brief for Respondent 2, n. 1. We assume without deciding
that the reasoning of our opinion would extend equally to §§ 504 and 2412.
We confine our discussion to § 504.

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the rates at which “fees” and “other expenses” are reim
bursed. Although the statute does refer to the “reasonable
cost” of “any study, analysis, engineering report, test, or
project,” Congress may reasonably have believed that mar
ket rates would not exist for work product of that kind. At
one point, Congress even appears to use the terms “ex
penses” and “fees” interchangeably: The first clause of
§ 504(b)(1)(A) refers to the “reasonable expenses of expert
witnesses,” while the parenthetical characterizes expert
compensation as “fees.” There is no indication that Con
gress, in using the term “expenses” in one place and “fees”
in the other, was referring to two different components of
expert remuneration.
Even if the dichotomy that the Government draws be
tween “fees” and “other expenses” were supported by the
statutory text, it would hardly follow that amounts billed for
paralegal services should be classified as “expenses” rather
than as “fees.” The Government concludes that the omis
sion of paralegal fees from § 504(b)(1)(A)’s parenthetical
(which generally authorizes reimbursement at “prevailing
market rates”) implies that the recovery of paralegal fees is
limited to cost. But one could just as easily conclude that
the omission of paralegal fees from the litany of “any study,
analysis, engineering report, test, or project” (all of which
are recoverable at “reasonable cost”) implies that paralegal
fees are recoverable at market rates. Surely paralegals are
more analogous to attorneys, experts, and agents than to
studies, analyses, reports, tests, and projects. Even the
Government’s brief, which incants the term “paralegal ex
penses,” e. g., Brief for Respondent 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
slips up once and refers to them as “fees,” see id., at 35 (“As
the court of appeals explained, treating paralegal fees as at
torney fees could ‘distort the normal allocation of work and
result in a less efficient performance of legal services’ under
the EAJA . . . ”).

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But even if we agreed that EAJA limited a prevailing par
ty’s recovery for paralegal fees to “reasonable cost,” it cer
tainly would not follow that the cost should be measured
from the perspective of the party’s attorney.4 To the con
trary, it would be anomalous to measure cost from the per
spective of the attorney rather than the client. We do not
understand the Government to contend, for example, that
the “reasonable cost” of an “engineering report” or “analy
sis” should be calculated from the perspective of the firm
that employs the engineer or analyst. Such an interpreta
tion would be tough to square with the statutory language,
which provides that an agency shall award to a prevailing
party “fees and other expenses incurred by that party.” 5
U. S. C. § 504(a)(1) (emphasis added); see also § 504(b)(1)(A).
That language leaves no doubt that Congress intended the
“reasonable cost” of the specified items in § 504(b)(1)(A) to
be calculated from the perspective of the litigant. That
being the case, we find it hard to believe that Congress, with
out even mentioning paralegals, intended to make an excep
tion of them by calculating their cost from the perspective
of their employer rather than the litigant. It seems more
plausible that Congress intended all “fees and other ex
penses” to be recoverable at the litigant’s “reasonable cost,”
subject to the proviso that “reasonable cost” would be
4 The Government contends that the question presented does not fairly
include the question whether the cost of paralegal services should be cal
culated from the perspective of the litigant rather than the litigant’s attor
ney. We disagree. The question presented in Richlin’s petition for cer
tiorari was whether “a prevailing party [may] be awarded attorney fees
for paralegal services at the market rate for such services, . . . [or at] cost
only.” Pet. for Cert. i. A decision limiting reimbursement to “cost only”
would simply beg the question of how that cost should be measured.
Since the question presented cannot genuinely be answered without ad
dressing the subsidiary question, we have no difficulty concluding that the
latter question is “fairly included” within the former. See this Court’s
Rule 14.1(a).

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deemed to be “prevailing market rates” when such rates
could be determined.5
B
To the extent that some ambiguity subsists in the statu
tory text, we need not look far to resolve it, for we have
already addressed a similar question with respect to another
fee-shifting statute. In Missouri v. Jenkins, 491 U. S. 274
(1989), we considered whether litigants could recover parale
gal fees under the Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Awards Act
of 1976, 42 U. S. C. § 1988. Section 1988 provides that “the
court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other
than the United States, a reasonable attorney’s fee as part
of the costs.” We concluded that the term “attorney’s fee”
in § 1988 “cannot have been meant to compensate only work
performed personally by members of the bar.” 491 U. S.,
at 285. Although separate billing for paralegals had become
“increasingly widespread,” id., at 286 (internal quotation
marks omitted), attorney’s fees had traditionally subsumed
both the attorney’s personal labor and the labor of paralegals
and other individuals who contributed to the attorney’s work
product, see id., at 285. We were so confident that Congress
had given the term “attorney’s fees” this traditional gloss
that we declared it “self-evident” that the term embraced
the fees of paralegals as well as attorneys. Ibid.
5 It is worth recalling that the Board calculated Richlin’s award based
on an Internet survey of paralegal salaries in the District of Columbia.
Presumably the salaries the Board identified represented the market rate
for paralegal compensation. The limited award that the Government
wants affirmed was thus based, ironically enough, on the “prevailing mar
ket rates” for paralegal services. The fact that paralegal salaries respond
to market forces no less than the fees that clients pay suggests to us
that this case has more to do with determining whose expenditures get
reimbursed (the attorney’s or the client’s) than with determining how ex
penditures are calculated (at cost or at market). Since EAJA authorizes
the recovery of fees and other expenses “incurred by [the] party,”
§ 504(a)(1), rather than the party’s attorney, the answer to the former
question is plain.

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We think Jenkins substantially answers the question be
fore us. EAJA, like § 1988, entitles certain parties to re
cover “reasonable attorney . . . fees.” 5 U. S. C.
§ 504(b)(1)(A). EAJA, like § 1988, makes no mention of the
paralegals, “secretaries, messengers, librarians, janitors, and
others whose labor contributes to the work product for which
an attorney bills her client.” Jenkins, supra, at 285. And
we think EAJA, like § 1988, must be interpreted as using the
term “attorney . . . fees” to reach fees for paralegal services
as well as compensation for the attorney’s personal labor.
The Government does not contend that the meaning of the
term “attorney’s fees” changed so much between § 1988’s en
actment in 1976 and EAJA’s enactment in 1980 that the
term’s meaning in one statute must be different from its
meaning in the other. Under the reasoning of Jenkins, we
take it as “self-evident” that when Congress instructed agen
cies to award “attorney . . . fees” to certain parties prevailing
against the Government, that term was intended to embrace
paralegal fees as well. Since § 504 generally provides for
recovery of attorney’s fees at “prevailing market rates,” it
follows that fees for paralegal services must be recoverable
at prevailing market rates as well.
The Government contends that our decision in Jenkins
was driven by considerations arising from the different con
text in which the term “attorney’s fee” was used in § 1988.
At the time Jenkins was decided, § 1988 provided for the
recovery of attorney’s fees without reference to any other
recoverable “expenses.” The Government insists that Jen
kins found paralegal fees recoverable under the guise of “at
torney’s fee[s]” because otherwise paralegal fees would not
be recoverable at all. Since EAJA expressly permits recov
ery (albeit at “cost”) for items other than attorney, agent,
and expert witness fees, the Government sees no reason to
give EAJA the broad construction that Jenkins gave § 1988.
The Government’s rationale for distinguishing Jenkins
finds no support either in our opinion there or in our subse

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quent decisions. Our opinion in Jenkins expressed no ap
prehension at the possibility that a contrary decision would
leave the claimant emptyhanded. This omission is unsur
prising, since our decision in Jenkins did not rest on the
conviction that recovery at market rates was better than
nothing. Our decision rested instead on the proposition—
a proposition we took as “self-evident”—that the term “at
torney’s fee” had historically included fees for paralegal
services.
Indeed, the Government’s interpretation of Jenkins was
rejected by this Court just two years after Jenkins was
handed down. In West Virginia Univ. Hospitals, Inc. v.
Casey, 499 U. S. 83, the petitioner sought to recover expert
witness fees from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania pursu
ant to § 1988. The petitioner looked to Jenkins for the prop
osition that the “broad remedial purposes” of § 1988 allowed
the recovery of fees not expressly authorized by statute.
The Court rejected that interpretation of Jenkins:
“The issue [in Jenkins] was not, as [petitioner] contends,
whether we would permit our perception of the ‘policy’
of the statute to overcome its ‘plain language.’ It was
not remotely plain in Jenkins that the phrase ‘attorney’s
fee’ did not include charges for law clerk and paralegal
services. Such services, like the services of ‘secretar
ies, messengers, librarians, janitors, and others whose
labor contributes to the work product,’ had traditionally
been included in calculation of the lawyers’ hourly rates.
Only recently had there arisen ‘the increasingly wide
spread custom of separately billing for [such] services.’
By contrast, there has never been, to our knowledge, a
practice of including the cost of expert services within
attorneys’ hourly rates. There was also no record in
Jenkins—as there is a lengthy record here—of statutory
usage that recognizes a distinction between the charges
at issue and attorney’s fees.” Casey, supra, at 99 (quot

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ing 491 U. S., at 285–286; some internal quotation marks
and citations omitted).6
Our analysis of Jenkins in Casey refutes the Government’s
claim that Jenkins had to stretch the law to fit hard facts.
As Casey shows, our decision in Jenkins turned not on extra
textual policy goals but on the traditional meaning of the
term “attorney’s fees.”
III
The Government parries this textual and doctrinal analy
sis with legislative history and public policy. We are not
persuaded by either. The legislative history cited by the
Government does not address the question presented, and
policy considerations actually counsel in favor of Richlin’s
interpretation.
A
The Government contends first that a 1984 Senate Report
accompanying the bill that reenacted EAJA7 unequivocally
expressed congressional intent that paralegal fees should be
recovered only “ ‘at cost.’ ” Brief for Respondent 29 (quot
ing S. Rep., at 15; emphasis in original). It next contends
that the Report tacitly endorsed the same result by approv
ing model rules of the Administrative Conference of the
United States and a pre-EAJA Sixth Circuit decision, both
of which had adopted schemes of reimbursement at attorney
cost. See Brief for Respondent 29. We are not persuaded.
In our view, the legislative history does not even address the
6 Following our decision in Casey, Congress amended § 1988 to allow
parties to recover “expert fees as part of the attorney’s fees.” Civil
Rights Act of 1991, § 113(a), 105 Stat. 1079 (codified at 42 U. S. C. § 1988(c)).
7 The version of EAJA first enacted in 1980 had a sunset provision effec
tive October 1, 1984. See §§ 203(c), 204(c), 94 Stat. 2327, 2329. Congress
revived EAJA without the sunset provision (but with certain other
amendments) in 1985. See Act of Aug. 5, 1985, §§ 1–2, 6, 99 Stat. 183–186;
see also n. 8, infra; see generally Scarborough v. Principi, 541 U. S. 401,
406–407 (2004) (summarizing EAJA’s legislative history).

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question presented, much less answer it in the Govern
ment’s favor.8
The Senate Report accompanying the 1984 bill remarked
that “[e]xamples of the type of expenses that should ordi
narily be compensable [under EAJA] include paralegal time
(billed at cost).” S. Rep., at 15. The Government concludes
from this stray remark that Congress intended to limit re
covery of paralegal fees to attorney cost. But as we ob
served earlier, the word “cost” could just as easily (and more
sensibly) refer to the client’s cost rather than the attorney’s
cost. Under the former interpretation, the Senate Report
simply indicates that a prevailing party who satisfies EAJA’s
other requirements should generally be able to “bil[l]” the
Government for any reasonable amount the party paid for
paralegal services. Since the litigant’s out-of-pocket cost
for paralegal services would normally be equal to the
“prevailing market rat[e]” for such services, 5 U. S. C.
§ 504(b)(1)(A), the Senate Report could easily support Rich
lin’s interpretation.
Moreover, even if the Government’s interpretation of the
word “cost” is correct, that interpretation would not be in
consistent with our decision today. “Nothing in [EAJA] re
quires that the work of paralegals invariably be billed sepa
rately. If it is the practice in the relevant market not to do
8 Richlin makes a threshold challenge to the legitimacy of the 1984 Sen
ate Report as legislative history, observing that the bill it accompanied
was vetoed by the President before being enacted by a subsequent Con
gress. See Brief for Petitioner 27 (“To the extent that legislative history
serves as legitimate evidence of congressional intent, it does so only be
cause it is presumed to have been ratified by Congress and the President
when the relevant legislation was enacted” (citing Siegel, The Use of Leg
islative History in a System of Separated Powers, 53 Vand. L. Rev. 1457,
1522 (2000); and Sullivan v. Finkelstein, 496 U. S. 617, 631–632 (1990)
(Scalia, J., concurring in part))). But see Melkonyan v. Sullivan, 501
U. S. 89, 96 (1991) (relying on the same Report to interpret EAJA’s 1985
amendments). Because the legislative history is a wash in this case, we
need not decide precisely how much weight it deserves in our analysis.

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so, or to bill the work of paralegals only at cost, that is all
that [EAJA] requires.” Jenkins, 491 U. S., at 288 (construing
42 U. S. C. § 1988). We thus recognize the possibility, as we
did in Jenkins, that the attorney’s cost for paralegal services
will supply the relevant metric for calculating the client’s
recovery. Whether that metric is appropriate depends on
market practice. The Senate Report, even under the Gov
ernment’s contestable interpretation, is not inconsistent with
that conclusion. On the contrary, the Report implies that
courts should look to market practice in setting EAJA
awards. See S. Rep., at 15 (“The Act should not be read . . .
to permit reimbursement for items ordinarily included in
office overhead, nor for any other expenses not reasonable
in amount, necessary for the conduct of the litigation, and
customarily chargeable to clients” (emphasis added)). Be
yond that vague guidance, the Report does not address the
critical question in this case: whether EAJA limits recovery
of paralegal fees to attorney cost regardless of market prac
tice. As such, the Report does not persuade us of the sound
ness of the Government’s interpretation of the statute.
The Government’s reliance on the Sixth Circuit’s decision
in Northcross v. Board of Ed. of Memphis City Schools, 611
F. 2d 624 (1979), founders for the same reason. The Govern
ment contends that Northcross approved of reimbursement
at attorney cost under 42 U. S. C. § 1988 and that the 1984
Senate Report, by endorsing Northcross, tacitly approved of
the same result for EAJA. See Brief for Respondent 30
(citing Northcross, supra, at 639). The problem again is that
Northcross did not decide whether a litigant’s recovery for
paralegal services would be limited to his attorney’s cost
even in a market where litigants were customarily billed
at “prevailing market rates.” Although the Sixth Circuit
seems to have been aware that paralegal services could be
billed to clients at market rates, some language in its opinion
suggests that the court assumed that attorneys billed their

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clients only for the out-of-pocket cost of paralegal services.9
Since Northcross does not clearly address the question pre
sented, its endorsement in the Senate Report means little.
Finally, the model rules cited in the Senate Report may
actually support Richlin’s position. The implementing re
lease for the rules describes the Administrative Conference’s
approach to paralegal costs as follows:
“Commenters also took varying positions on whether
paralegal costs should be chargeable as expenses. We
do not believe the rules should discourage the use of
paralegals, which can be an important cost-saving meas
ure. On the other hand, lawyers’ practices with respect
to charging for paralegal time, as with respect to other
expenses such as duplicating, telephone charges and the
like, vary according to locality, field of practice, and indi
vidual custom. We have decided not to designate spe
cific items as compensable expenses. Instead, we will
adopt a suggestion of the Treasury Department and re
vise the model rule to provide that expenses may be
charged as a separate item if they are ordinarily so
charged to the attorney’s clients.” Administrative Con
ference of the U. S., Equal Access to Justice Act: Agency
Implementation, 46 Fed. Reg. 32905 (1981).
To the extent that this passage addresses the question pre
sented at all, it seems to take the same approach that the
9 Compare Northcross, 611 F. 2d, at 638 (“[A] scale of fees as is used by
most law firms is appropriate to use in making fee awards pursuant to
Section 1988. The use of broad categories, differentiating between para
legal services, in-office services by experienced attorneys and trial service,
would result in a fair and equitable fee”), with id., at 639 (“The authority
granted in section 1988 to award a reasonable attorney’s fee included the
authority to award those reasonable out-of-pocket expenses incurred by
the attorney which are normally charged to a fee-paying client, in the
course of providing legal services. Reasonable photocopying, paralegal
expenses, and travel and telephone costs are thus recoverable pursuant to
the statutory authority of § 1988” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

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Court took in Jenkins and that we adopt today: It allows the
recovery of paralegal fees according to “the practice in the
relevant market.” 491 U. S., at 288. But we think the fair
est interpretation of the implementing release is that it does
not address how awards for paralegal fees should be calcu
lated. Instead, it addresses the anterior question whether
courts may award paralegal fees under EAJA at all. See,
e. g., 46 Fed. Reg. 32905 (responding to comments urging that
the model rules “identify particular expenses of attorneys
and witnesses that are compensable”). Like the other legis
lative authorities cited by the Government, the model rules
fail to persuade us of the soundness of the Government’s in
terpretation because they fail to clearly address the ques
tion presented.
B
We find the Government’s policy rationale for recovery at
attorney cost likewise unpersuasive. The Government ar
gues that market-based recovery would distort litigant in
centives because EAJA would cap paralegal and attorney’s
fees at the same rate. See 5 U. S. C. § 504(b)(1)(A) (“[A]ttor
ney or agent fees shall not be awarded in excess of $125
per hour unless the agency determines by regulation that an
increase in the cost of living or a special factor, such as the
limited availability of qualified attorneys or agents for the
proceedings involved, justifies a higher fee”). The Govern
ment observes that paralegal rates are lower than rates for
attorneys operating in the same market. If EAJA reim
bursed both attorney time and paralegal time at market
rates, then the cap would clip more off the top of the attor
ney’s rates than the paralegal’s rates. According to the Gov
ernment, a market-based scheme would encourage litigants
to shift an inefficient amount of attorney work to paralegals,
since paralegal fees could be recovered at a greater percent
age of their full market value.
The problem with this argument, as Richlin points out, is
that it proves too much. The same reasoning would imply

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that agent fees should not be recoverable at market rates.10
If market-based recovery of paralegal time resulted in exces
sive reliance on paralegals, then market-based recovery of
agent time should result in excessive reliance on agents.
The same reasoning would also imply that fees for junior
attorneys (who generally bill at lower rates than senior
attorneys) should not be recoverable at market rates.
Cf. Jenkins, supra, at 287 (“If the fees are consistent with
market rates and practices, the ‘windfall’ argument has no
more force with regard to paralegals than it does for associ
ates”). Yet despite the possibility that market-based recov
ery of attorney and agent fees would distort litigant incen
tives, § 504 unambiguously authorizes awards of “reasonable
attorney or agent fees . . . [at] prevailing market rates.” 5
U. S. C. § 504(b)(1)(A). The Government offers no persua
sive reason why Congress would have treated paralegal fees
any differently. The Government’s policy rationale thus
founders on the text of the statute, which shows that Con
gress was untroubled by the very distortion the Government
seeks to prevent.
We also question the practical feasibility of the Govern
ment’s interpretation of the statute. The Board in this case
relied on the Internet for data on paralegal salaries in the
District of Columbia, but the Government fails to explain
why a law firm’s cost should be limited to salary. The bene
fits and perks with which a firm compensates its staff come
out of the bottom line no less than salary. The Government
has offered no solution to this accounting problem, and we do
not believe that solutions are readily to be found. Market
10 “ ‘An “agent fee” may be awarded for the services of a non-attorney
where an agency permits such agents to represent parties who come be
fore it.’ ” Brief for Respondent 11, n. 4 (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 96–1418,
p. 14 (1980)); see also n. 2, supra. Since federal courts generally do not
permit nonattorneys to practice before them, the portion of EAJA govern
ing awards for parties to federal litigation makes no provision for agent
fees. Compare 28 U. S. C. § 2412(d)(2)(A) with 5 U. S. C. § 504(b)(1)(A).

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practice provides by far the more transparent basis for calcu
lating a prevailing party’s recovery under EAJA. It strains
credulity that Congress would have abandoned this predict
able, workable framework for the uncertain and complex
accounting requirements that a cost-based rule would inflict
on litigants, their attorneys, administrative agencies, and
the courts.
IV
Confronted with the flaws in its interpretation of the stat
ute, the Government seeks shelter in a canon of construction.
According to the Government, any right to recover paralegal
fees under EAJA must be read narrowly in light of the statu
tory canon requiring strict construction of waivers of sover
eign immunity. We disagree.
The sovereign immunity canon is just that—a canon of con
struction. It is a tool for interpreting the law, and we have
never held that it displaces the other traditional tools of stat
utory construction. Indeed, the cases on which the Govern
ment relies all used other tools of construction in tandem
with the sovereign immunity canon. See Ardestani v. INS,
502 U. S. 129, 137 (1991) (relying on the canon as “reinforce
[ment]” for the independent “conclusion that any ambiguities
in the legislative history are insufficient to undercut the ordi
nary understanding of the statutory language”); Ruckels
haus v. Sierra Club, 463 U. S. 680, 682, 685–686 (1983) (rely
ing on the canon in tandem with “historic principles of
fee-shifting in this and other countries” to define the scope
of a fee-shifting statute); Department of Energy v. Ohio, 503
U. S. 607, 626–627 (1992) (resorting to the canon only after a
close reading of the statutory provision had left the Court
“with an unanswered question and an unresolved tension be
tween closely related statutory provisions”); see also Smith
v. United States, 507 U. S. 197, 201–203 (1993) (invoking the
sovereign immunity canon only after observing that the
claimant’s argument was “undermine[d]” by the “common
sense meaning” of the statutory language). In this case,

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traditional tools of statutory construction and considerations
of stare decisis compel the conclusion that paralegal fees are
recoverable as attorney’s fees at their “prevailing market
rates.” 5 U. S. C. § 504(b)(1)(A). There is no need for us to
resort to the sovereign immunity canon because there is no
ambiguity left for us to construe.
V
For these reasons, we hold that a prevailing party that
satisfies EAJA’s other requirements may recover its parale
gal fees from the Government at prevailing market rates.
The Board’s contrary decision was error, and the Federal
Circuit erred in affirming that decision. The judgment of
the Federal Circuit is reversed, and this case is remanded
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.