Page:Baker Botts L.L.P. v. ASARCO LLC.pdf/8

128 “(B) reimbursement for actual, necessary expenses.” (Emphasis added.) This text cannot displace the American Rule with respect to fee-defense litigation. To be sure, the phrase “reasonable compensation for actual, necessary services rendered” permits courts to award fees to attorneys for work done to assist the administrator of the estate, as the Bankruptcy Court did here when it ordered ASARCO to pay roughly $120 million for the firms’ work in the bankruptcy proceeding. No one disputes that §330(a)(1) authorizes an award of attorney’s fees for that kind of work. See Alyeska Pipeline, supra, at 260, and n. 33 (listing §330(a)(1)’s predecessor as an example of a provision authorizing attorney’s fees). But the phrase “reasonable compensation for actual, necessary services rendered” neither specifically nor explicitly authorizes courts to shift the costs of adversarial litigation from one side to the otherin this case, from the attorneys seeking fees to the administrator of the estateas most statutes that displace the American Rule do.

Instead, §330(a)(1) provides compensation for all §327(a) professionalswhether accountant, attorney, or auctioneerfor all manner of work done in service of the estate administrator. More specifically, §330(a)(1) allows “reasonable compensation” only for “actual, necessary services rendered.” (Emphasis added.) That qualification is significant. The word “services” ordinarily refers to “labor performed for another.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 2288 (def. 4) (2d ed. 1934); see also Black’s Law Dictionary 1607 (3d ed. 1933) (“duty or labor to be rendered by one person to another”); Oxford English Dictionary 517 (def. 19) (1933) (“action of serving, helping or benefiting; conduct tending to the welfare or advantage of another”). Thus, in