Page:Baker Botts L.L.P. v. ASARCO LLC.pdf/13

Rh everyone agreed authorized court-awarded fees for fee-defense litigation. 496 U. S., at 162. The “only dispute” in that context was over what “finding [was] necessary to support such an award.” Ibid. In resolving that issue, the Court declined to treat fee-application and fee-litigation work differently given that the relevant statutory text“a court shall award to a prevailing party … fees and other expenses … incurred by that party in any civil action”could not support such a distinction. Id., at 158. Here, by contrast, the operative language“reasonable compensation for actual, necessary services rendered”reaches only the fee-application work. The fact that the provision at issue in Jean “did not mention fee-defense work,”, is thus irrelevant.

In any event, the Government’s textual foothold for its argument is too insubstantial to support a deviation from the American Rule. The open-ended phrase “reasonable compensation,” standing alone, is not the sort of “specific and explicit provisio[n]” that Congress must provide in order to alter this default rule. Alyeska Pipeline, 421 U. S., at 260.

Ultimately, the Government’s theory rests on a flawed and irrelevant policy argument. The United States contends that awarding fees for fee-defense litigation is a “judicial exception” necessary to the proper functioning of the Bankruptcy Code. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 15, n. 7 (internal quotation marks omitted). Absent this exception, it warns, fee-defense litigation will dilute attorney’s fees and result in bankruptcy lawyers receiving less compensation than nonbankruptcy lawyers, thereby undermining the congressional aim of ensuring that talented attorneys will take on bankruptcy work. Accord,.

As an initial matter, we find this policy argument unconvincing. In our legal system, no attorneys, regardless of whether they practice in bankruptcy, are entitled to receive