Page:Baker Botts L.L.P. v. ASARCO LLC.pdf/12

132 administrator. That provision specifies that “[a]ny compensation awarded for the preparation of a fee application shall be based on the level and skill reasonably required to prepare the application.” The Government argues that because time spent preparing a fee application is compensable, time spent defending it must be too. But the provision cuts the other way. A §327(a) professional’s preparation of a fee application is best understood as a “servic[e] rendered” to the estate administrator under §330(a)(1), whereas a professional’s defense of that application is not. By way of analogy, it would be natural to describe a car mechanic’s preparation of an itemized bill as part of his “services” to the customer because it allows a customer to understandand, if necessary, disputehis expenses. But it would be less natural to describe a subsequent court battle over the bill as part of the “services rendered” to the customer.

The Government used to understand that time spent preparing a fee application was different from time spent defending one for the purposes of §330(a)(1). Just a few years ago, the U. S. Trustee explained that “[r]easonable charges for preparing … fee applications … are compensable … because the preparation of a fee application is not required for lawyers practicing in areas other than bankruptcy as a condition to getting paid.” 78 Fed. Reg. 36250 (2013) (emphasis deleted). By contrast, “time spent … defending … fee applications” is ordinarily “not compensable,” the Trustee observed, as such time can be “properly characterized as work that is for the benefit of the professional and not the estate.” Ibid.

To support its broader interpretation of §330(a)(6), the Government, echoed by the dissent, relies on our remark in Jean that “[w]e find no textual or logical argument for treating so differently a party’s preparation of a fee application and its ensuing efforts to support that same application.” 496 U. S., at 162; see. But that use of Jean begs the question. Jean addressed a statutory provision that