*406 OPINION OF THE COURT
“A request for attorney’s fees should not result in a second major litigation.”
Hensley v. Eckerhart,
I. Facts and Procedural History
Mutual Chemical Company of America (“Mutual”) operated a chrome manufacturing plant in Jеrsey City, New Jersey from 1895 to 1954. During that time, the company deposited approximately 1.5 million tons of industrial waste residue containing hexavalent chromium into wetlands along the Hackensack River. (Joint Appendix [“J.A.”] 1082-83.) In 1954, Allied Corporation purchased the plant and ended the dumping. Allied Corporation was succeeded by AlliedSignal, Inc., and later by Honeywell International, Inc. (“Honeywell”). Although the dumping stopped, the contaminated area was not cleaned up.
In 1995, the Interfaith Community Organization and five residents of the nearby community (collectively, “ICO”), represented by the Washington, D.C. law firm of Terris, Pravlik & Millian, LLP (“Terris”), filed the original suit against Allied-Signal, then the owner of the site, seeking the cleanup of a contaminated area designated “Study Area 7.” ICO sued AlliedSignal under the citizen suit provision of RCRA, which allows individuals to bring a civil action against any person “who has contributed or who is contributing to the past or present handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of any solid or hazardous waste which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment....” 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B).
The District Court entered judgment for ICO in 2003, ordering Honeywell (which had succeeded AlliedSignal) to clean up Study Area 7.
Interfaith Cmty. Org. v. Honeywell Int’l Inc.,
In 2004, the District Court awarded ICO more than $4.5 million in fees and expenses for litigating the 1995 action, and also required Honeywell to pay the future fees and costs incurred by ICO in monitoring Honeywell’s cleanup.
Interfaith Cmty. Org. v. Honeywell Int’l, Inc. (ICO
I),
In 2005, Hackensack Riverkeeper (“Riverkeeper”), also represented by Terris, filed companion cases against Honeywell stemming from the same contamination but relating to areas adjacent to Study Area 7, designated as “Study Area 5” and “Study Area 6.” (J.A. 1140.) The parties entered into a number of consent decrees in which Honeywell conceded responsibility, and agreed to remediate the additional contaminated sites. As part of the consent decrees, Honeywell also agreed to pay $5 million in fees and cоsts for the expenses incurred prior to the decrees, and to pay “reasonable” future fees and expenses incurred in connection with monitoring Honeywell’s remediation efforts. (J.A. 334-35.)
Initially, the parties were able to reach agreement on fees and expenses. Beginning in the fall of 2009, however, Honeywell, on the one hand, and ICO and River-keeper (collectively, “Appellees”) on the other, failed to reach agreement with respect to the fees sought for monitoring Honeywell’s work.
Terris subsequently filed two separate fee applications, totaling more than $700,000, for its monitoring work performed in 2009 and the first half of 2010 in connection with both cases. Terris filed a separate application, seeking almost $2.5 million, for work performed on the 2005 litigation. Honeywell filed objections to the fee applications. Specifically, Honeywell renewed its previously-rejected arguments that the forum rate rule should be applied so that the hourly rates sought by Terris should be based upon the rates charged by New Jersey lawyers as opposed to Washington, D.C. lawyers, and that, even if D.C. rates were used, Appellees applied the wrong method for calculating prevailing D.C. market rates. In addition, Honeywell once again contested the reasonableness of the hours and expenses claimed by counsel. Honeywell also served offers of judgment pursuant to Rule 68 for the disputed fees. In response, Appellees asked the District Court to issue a deсlaratory judgment that Honeywell’s Rule 68 offers are null and void in the context of RCRA citizen suits.
On September 8, 2011, the District Court issued an opinion that substantially upheld the Appellees’ fee request. First, the District Court once again ruled that the forum-rate rule need not be applied in this case so that Terris could be paid Washington, D.C. rates for work relating to a dispute in New Jersey.
Interfaith Cmty. Org. v. Honeywell Int'l, Inc. (ICO III),
II. Discussion
The District Court had jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a), the citizen
*408
suit provision of RCRA, and we have appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We “review the legal interpretation of procedural rules de novo.”
United Auto. Workers Local 259 Soc. Sec. Dep’t v. Metro Auto Ctr.,
A. Rule 68 Offers of Judgment
We must first decide whether offers of judgment made pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 apply to attorney’s fee disputes brought under the citizen suit provision of RCRA. As the Supreme Court has instructed, “[w]e give the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure their plain meaning, and generally with them as with a statute, [w]hen we find the terms unambiguous, judicial inquiry is complete.”
Pavelic & LeFlore v. Marvel Entm’t Group,
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 provides, in pertinent part:
(a) Making an Offer; Judgment on an Accepted Offer. At least 14 days before the date set for trial, a party defending against a claim may serve on an opposing party an offer to allow judgment on specified terms, with the costs then accrued....
(c) Offer After Liability is Determined. When one party’s liability to another has been determined but the extent of liability remains to be determined by further proceedings, the party held liable may make an offer of judgment. ...
(d) Paying Costs After an Unaccepted Offer. If the judgment that the offeree finally obtains is not more favorable than the unaccepted offer, the offeree must pay the costs incurred after the offer was made.
Fed.R.Civ.P. 68(a), (c)-(d)
Rule 68 does not exempt from its purview any type of civil action. See 12 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice & Procedure § 3001.1 (2d ed.1987). Moreover, Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states that the rules apply to “all suits of a civil nature,” unless exempted by Rule 81. Fed.R.Civ.P. 1. Rule 81, in turn, does not set forth any restrictions on Rule 68’s applicability to citizen suits under RCRA, or to suits seeking equitable relief generally. Thus, by its plain terms, Rule 68 is applicable to RCRA citizen suits.
The District Court, however, held that Rule 68 is so incompatible with Congress’ purpose in enacting RCRA that its application to cases brought under § 6972 would violate the Rules Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2072. The Rules Enabling Act gives the Supreme Court the power to “prescribe general rules of practice and procedure and rules of evidence for cases in the United States district courts ... and the courts of appeals,” provided that “such rules [do] not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right.” § 2072(a)-(b). Thus, if applying Rule 68 to § 6972 citizen suits abridges or modifies a substantive right, then Rule 68 offers are void in this *409 context notwithstanding the plain meaning of the rule.
A rule of procedure does not run afoul of this statutory limitation merely because it “affects a litigant’s substantive rights; most procedural rules do.”
Shady Grove Orthopedic Assocs., P.A. v. Allstate Ins. Co.,
Applying the criterion that a rule of procedure impermissibly “abridge[s], enlarge[s], or modifies] [a] substantive right,” 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b), only if it alters the rules for adjudicating a litigant’s rights, we readily conclude that application of Rule 68 in the specific context of this case does not violate the Rules Enabling Act. No rule of decision governing the adjudication of the attorney’s fee dispute that is the subject of Honeywell’s offers of judgment is affected by application of Rule 68. The amount of the fee to be awardеd remains governed by the same rules of decision regardless of the interposition of an offer of judgment. At best, the only impact that Rule 68 has on the ultimate outcome of the attorney’s fee dispute is to require Appellees to bear their post-offer costs, including counsel fees, if the fee award is less favorable than the offer of judgment.
1
See
Fed.R.Civ.P. 68(d);
Marek v. Chesny,
In light of Rule 68’s laudatory purpose of facilitating settlement,
Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. August,
The District Court, relying upon
Public Interest Research Group of New Jersey v. Struthers-Dunn, Inc.,
Civ. A. No. 87-1773,
The Supreme Court has not considered Rule 68’s impact on § 6972 citizen suits, but it has addressed the interaction between Rule 68 and the fee-shifting statute applicable to civil rights litigation, 42 U.S.C. § 1988.
See Marek,
Appellees argue that Marek is distinguishable because civil rights plaintiffs are often motivated by the potential for personal gain, in contrast to RCRA plaintiffs, who seek injunctive relief in furtherance of a purely public gain. 3 Although Appellees are correct that citizen plaintiffs suing under § 6972 cannot recover monetary damages, while plaintiffs in *411 civil rights cases often can, they miss the point of the Court’s analysis in Marek. The Court sustained application of Rule 68 to civil rights cases even though it could chill the pursuit of litigation intended to vindicate important rights. The Court concluded that, notwithstanding such potential, Rule 68 applied because the policies underlying Rule 68 and the fee shifting statute at issue there were compatible. 4
The fact that only equitable relief is available under section 6972 does not alter this conclusion. Courts have applied Rule 68 to suits seeking equitable relief despite arguments that doing so would discourage such claims.
See, e.g., NAACP v. Town of East Haven,
*412
The fee shifting provision of section 6972 encourages plaintiffs to bring meritorious suits to enforce environmental laws, while Rule 68 encourages settlement of civil suits.
See Delta Air Lines,
Our Rule 68 inquiry is not yet complete, however. Appellees raise another challenge to Rule 68’s applicability in this case, contending that the rule does not apply to proceedings after judgment has been rendered on liability. Appellees point to the text of the rule, which states that an offer of judgment must be made “at least 14 days before the date set for trial,” or, if “one party’s liability to another has been determined but the extent of liability remains to be determined by further proceedings ... it must be served within a reasonable time ... before the date set for a hearing to determine the extent of liability.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 68(a), (c). Appellees interpret this language to mean that the rule only applies in two situations: first, before a trial; and, second, in a bifurcated proceeding after judgment has been rendered but before the extent of liability is determined.
The first situation plainly does not apply here, and Appellees claim that this case does not fall within the second situation because attorney’s fees cannot be regarded as part of Honeywell’s liability. Specifically, Appellees assert that the word “liability” — even within the phrase “extent of liability” — does not encompass a dispute over attorney fees. To support this interpretation of the tеxt, Appellees point to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54, which provides definitions of “judgment” and “costs.” See Fed.R.Civ.P. 54. Because Rule 54 includes attorney fees within the definition of “costs,” Appellees argue that fees cannot also be included within the definition of “liability.” (Appellee’s Br. 55). Further, Appellees observe that “RCRA provides that ‘costs of litigation’ include ‘reasonable attorney and expert witness fees,”’ and note that, under Marek, Rule 68 “costs” must also include attorney fees. (Appellee’s Br. 55-56). Because “costs” include attorney fees for purposes of Rule 68, Appellees argue, attorney fees cannot also be part of “liability.” (Id.)
Given the ordinary meaning of “liability,” see Black’s Law Dictionary 997 (9th ed.2009), the phrase “extent of liability” encompasses all legal responsibilitiеs. This appeal is evidence that the extent of Honeywell’s liability has yet to be determined.
This conclusion is consistent with our approach in
Public Interest Research Group of New Jersey v. Windall (PIRG),
Moreover, the policies underlying Rule 68 support this interpretation. Rule 68 was created to “encourage the settlement of litigation.”
Delta Air Lines,
B. Forum-Rate Rule
We now turn our attention to the District Court’s departure from the forum-rate rule. The forum-rate rule holds that “in most cases, the relevant rate [for calculating attorney fees] is the prevailing rate in the forum of the litigation.”
ICO II,
Considering the issue once again in the instant litigation, the District Court found that Appellees demonstrated that “at least one, if not both, of the exceptions tо the forum rate rule still apply.”
ICO III,
The District Court found that the Appellees met the second exception to the forum-rate rule by demonstrating that local counsel were unwilling to handle the case. In making this finding, the District Court relied on the affidavits of William Sheehan, Riverkeeper’s executive director, and Edward Lloyd, the Evan M. Frankel Clinical Professor of Environmental Law at Columbia Law School and former director of the Rutgers University Environmental Law Clinic. Both affidavits support the District Court’s finding that an extensive search for New Jersey counsel would have been futile. Specifically, Sheehan’s affidavit stated that, because River-keeper cannot afford to pay attorneys’ fees, it relies on pro bono representation from the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic and the Eastern Environmental Law Center in New Jersey in the environmental cases in which it participates. Sheehan explained it was his understanding that neither of those organizations would be able to take on larger, more complicated cases such as the Study Areas 5 and 6 litigation. Sheehan further stated that “Riverkeeper has had a difficult time finding legal representation since it does not even have the resources to pay for fees and expenses even in small mattеrs.” (J.A. 714.) Finally, Sheehan noted that he has personally had at least six meetings with local New Jersey counsel hoping to convince them to handle various cases for *414 Riverkeeper on a pro bono basis, but to no avail.
Likewise, Lloyd’s affidavit also supports the District Court’s finding that local counsel would have been unwilling to accept this ease. Lloyd stated:
At the time that the Study Areas 5 and 6 case was initiated in 2005, I was not aware of any New Jersey attorneys or law firms who would have been willing to assume the risks of litigating cases of this type, particularly without contemporaneous payment for their services and expenses.
(J.A. 724.)
Lloyd’s affidavit in this case is very similar to the affidavit he filed in support of the fee application in
ICO I,
which we found persuasive when we upheld the District Court’s departure from the forum-rate rule in that case.
See ICO II,
Notwithstanding our explicit reliance on Lloyd’s prior affidavit in ICO II, Honeywell now argues that Appellees should have been required to conduct an individualized search for New Jersey counsel to handle the Study Area 5 and 6 cases, even if Sheehan and Lloyd’s experience in other similar cases taught them that no such counsel would have been available, because “[t]heir assumptions about the unavailability of counsel ... do not demonstrate the absence of willing New Jersey counsel.” (Appellant’s Br. 28.) We are not persuaded by this argument. Our decision in ICO II explicitly credited Lloyd’s testimony that he was unaware of willing local counsel, which he based on three decades of experience practicing environmental law in New Jersey. Here, the District Court relied on an additional affidavit that described the difficulty Riverkeeper faces in procuring counsel in even smaller cases due to its inability to pay attorneys’ fees. We once again find no clear error in the District Court’s finding that Appellees demonstrated that local counsel are unwilling to handle the case. Accordingly, we will affirm the departure from the forum-rate rule in this case. 5
C. The Laffey Matrix
Because we have sustained the Distriсt Court’s decision to allow Terris to be compensated on the basis of Washington, D.C. rates, we must now determine whether the District Court erred in deciding what these rates are. In this case, the District Court applied what is known as the “Laffey Matrix” for purposes of determining the appropriate hourly rates.
6
The Laffey Matrix “provides billing rates for attorneys in the Washington, D.C. market with various degrees of experience.”
ICO II,
The parties agree that the initiаl Laffey Matrix was a valid index of Washington, D.C. rates in 1982. The parties further agree that an updated version of the Laffey Matrix, which accounts for the rise in prevailing rates based on inflation, would be a valid vehicle for determining the applicable hourly rates in the D.C. legal market today. The parties disagree, however, about the proper method of updating the matrix. Appellees favor the Legal Services Index (“LSI”) method, which accounts for “shifts in the consumer price index for legal services nationwide.”
ICO III,
Appellees point to
Salazar
in support of their preference for the LSI index.
See Salazar,
The District Court, recognizing that “our Circuit has yet to specifically approve either version of updating the Laffey Matrix,” was persuaded by the methodology in
Salazar. ICO III,
[W]e do agree ... that thе simple fact that numerous courts in the District of Columbia have upheld the U.S. Attorney’s Matrix as a reasonable measure of billing rates is not a sufficient ground for us to conclude that reliance by the District Court on' [plaintiffs’] updated Laffey Matrix was clearly erroneous.
ICO II,
We review the District Court’s determination of the appropriate billing rate for clear error.
ICO II,
D. The Reasonableness of the Hours Expended
Although we have a sufficient record for sustaining the District Court’s determinations as to the appropriate hourly rates, we cannot say the same with respect to the other component of the fee calculation: the reasonableness of the hours expended by Terris. As we remarked in ICO II,
[a] prevailing party is not automatically entitled to compensation for all the time its attorneys spent working on the case; rather, a court awarding fees must “decide whether the hours set out were reasonably expended for еach of the particular purposes described and then exclude those that are excessive, redundant, or otherwise unnecessary.”
The District Court “has ‘a positive and affirmative function in the fee fixing analysis, not merely a passive role.’ ”
Id.
at 713 (quoting
Loughner v. Univ. of Pittsburgh,
Here, Honeywell did identify specific categories of work for which the hours claimed were purportedly unreasonable. Specifically, Honeywell objected to the following:
• 299 hours, amounting to $131,532 in fees, for lоbbying activities. 9
• Approximately 2,400 hours, or nearly $1 million in fees, for identifying and supervising experts.
• More than 1,300 hours, approximating $600,000, to conduct a few Rule 30(b)(6) depositions.
*417 • More than 2,600 hours, exceeding $400,000 in fees, for document or database management.
• Over 1,300 hours, resulting in more than $400,000 in fees, for document review.
• 837 hours, totaling $271,824 in fees, for “pretrial work.”
• 331 hours, totaling more than $125,000, for remediation of one residential property.
• 242 hours, amounting to more than $100,000 in fees, for financial assurances from Honeywell
• 578 hours, exceeding $400,000 in fees, for Bruce Terris’s time overseeing the work of the other Terris partners.
• Almost 2,300 hours, amounting to over $1 million in fees, for intra-office conferencing. 10
• Expert witness expenses totaling more than $1.3 million.
Although decrying the litigation tactics employed by Terris as “distasteful,” “aggressive,” and “unsavory,”
id.
at 751, 753, thе District Court nonetheless chose to “credit[ ] [Appellees’] arguments ... as to the reasonableness of the legal and expert fees, expenses and hours charged,” explaining that it “will not second guess the staffing decisions of either the Terris firms or its experts....”
Id.
at 754-55. This perfunctory statement does not allow for meaningful appellate court review. As we said in
ICO II,
“where the opinion of the District Court ‘is so terse, vague, or conclusory that we have no basis to review it, we must vacate the fee-award order and remand for further proceedings.’”
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we will reverse the District Court’s ruling that Rule 68 offers of judgment are inapplicable in the context of environmental citizen suits brought under RCRA, direct that the previously made offers of judgment be reinstated, affirm the District Court’s departure from the forum-rate rule, affirm the District Court’s application of the LSI-updated Laffey Matrix, vacate the District Court’s fee award, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Notes
. Presumably, the only post-offer fees that may have to be borne by a plaintiff in the context presented here would be for time expended to continue to litigate the attorney’s fee dispute. In this context, therefore, the plaintiff is presented with the classic risk/reward consideration in evaluating any settlement offer: is it probable that continuation of the litigation will achieve an outcome that is worth more than the offer plus the costs incurred after the offer is received.
. Marek held that where a statute includes attorney's fees within the term "costs,” such as 42 U.S.C. § 1988 does, "a defendant is not liable for the post-offer attorney fees of a rejecting offeree who obtains a judgment not more favorable than the offer.” 13 J. Moore, Moore’s Federal Practice § 68.08[4][a] (3d ed.201i). The citizen suit provision of RCRA provides that ”[t]he court ... may award costs of litigation (including reasonable attorney and expert witness fees) to the prevailing or substantially prevailing party, whenever the court determines such an award is appropriate." 42 U.S.C. § 6972(e). Thus, under Marek, Appellees could not recover post-offer fees if the аmount ultimately awarded to them was less than the corresponding offer of judgment.
. Private citizens bringing suit under 42 U.S.C. § 6972 are limited to mandatory and prohibitory injunctive relief.
Meghrig v. KFC W., Inc.,
.
Struthers-Dunn,
Struthers-Dunn
is fatally flawed for another reason: its rationale rested on the unsound assumptions that plaintiffs could not recover any fees in the event that the ultimate recovery was less than the offer,
see id.
at *4 ("plaintiffs in the present action would ... be precluded from an award of attorney’s fees if they obtained a judgment less favorable than defendant’s Rule 68 offer”), and that plaintiffs may have to pay defense counsel fees incurred after the offer was made.
See id.
at *4, n. 7("[I]f plaintiffs’ incentive to vigorously prosecute this action would be chilled by the risk of having to pay defendant’s costs, then plaintiffs’ desire to pursue this litigation would be overcome from exposure at the prospect of being held accountable for defendants’ attorney’s fees.”) Contrary to the District Court’s statement, a plaintiff who prevails on a fee-shifting claim is entitled to fees incurred beforе the offer of judgment.
See Marek,
Furthermore, where a plaintiff has prevailed on its underlying claim, a defendant in a fee-shifting case cannot recover attorney’s fees under Rule 68 because in that circumstance it cannot be said that the plaintiff's action was " ‘frivolous, unreasonable or without foundation,’ ” the general standard for awarding fees as part of "costs” to a prevailing defendant.
See Le v. Univ. of Pennsylvania,
. In light of this determination, we need not address whether the District Court erred in finding that Appellees also met the first exception by demonstrating that local counsel did not have the "special expertise” necessary to represent ICO.
. The Laffey Matrix was first utilized in
Laffey v. Nw. Airlines,
. The U.S. Attorney Matrix yields the following rates for 2010-2011:
Years of Experience_Hourly Rate
20+_$475_
11-19 years_$420_
8-10 years_$335_
4-7 years_$275_
I-3 years_$230_
paralegals_$135_
The LSI-updated Matrix yields the following rates for 2010-2011:
Years of Experience_Hourly Rate
20+_$709_
II-19 years_$589_
8-10 years_$522_
4-7 years_$362_ 1-3 years $293
paralegals_$161_
(JA 935-36.)
. Specifically, the Salazar court explained that the advantage of the LSI index is that it is based on the "legal services component of the Consumer Price Index rather than the general CPI on which the [USAO mаtrix] is based.” The Salazar court further explained that, although the advantage of the USAO Matrix is its reliance on data that is specific to the Washington, D.C. area, "the market for legal services in complex federal litigation in Washington, D.C. is not a local market.” Id. at 14, 15 n. 5 (citing affidavit of Michael Kavanaugh ¶ 15). Thus, the Salazar court concluded that the LSI-updated Laffey Matrix was preferable to the USAO index. Id. at 15.
. Although acknowledging that it was not likely that such work "was 'crucial to safeguard the interests asserted,’ ” the District Court approved 75% of the time expended.
ICO III,
. The District Court reduced the fees in this category by 10%, but gave no explanation as to why a 10% reduction was adequate.
ICO III,
. We respectfully suggest that the District Court consider the appointment of a Special Master to review the fee applications in these now-consolidated matters. The fee requests present a daunting task to a busy District Court, which must handle a multitude of matters with limited resources. A report from a Special Master, who could be compensated equally by both Honeywell and Appellees, may facilitate the District Court’s requisite “thorough and searching analysis” of the law firm’s billing records.
ICO II,