Alaska Supreme Court upholds denial of attorney fees where petitioner failed to document charges

In case number S19339, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed a trial court's denial of a woman's request to have her husband pay her attorney's fees after she obtained a domestic-violence protective order.

The court's opinion explains that although Alaska's protective-order statute permits a judge to order the losing party to pay the winning party's legal fees to encourage lawyers to represent victims, a separate evidentiary rule applies when the losing party contests the amount. When the losing person requests proof of legal fees, the winning person must produce documentation showing the lawyer's work and charges; if such proof is not provided the court should deny the request. The transcript states the petitioner did not supply documents or other proof of her lawyer's fees, and the Alaska Supreme Court concluded the trial court was correct to deny the award.

The court reviewed the protective-order law and its prior decisions and applied the proof requirement used in other civil contexts to protective-order proceedings. The transcript does not specify the exact statutory citation for the protective-order law; that detail was not provided in the record excerpt.

The petitioner appealed the trial court's denial, but the Supreme Court's decision leaves the trial court's disposition intact: because the petitioner failed to document her attorney's charges after the opposing party requested proof, she cannot recover those fees on appeal. The decision clarifies that attorneys representing domestic-violence victims should be prepared to document fees when they seek fee-shifting relief and the opposing party challenges the amount.

The transcript supplies no information about the parties' names beyond the case number, and it does not include direct quotations from the court's written opinion. The appeal is resolved in favor of the trial court's prior ruling.