By Andrew Cohen
While interning for federal judge Rudolph Contreras last fall, Eric Ahern ’25 regularly got asked to assist with motions for attorney fees. Each involved applying the Fitzpatrick Matrix, a court-approved chart of reasonable hourly rates for lawyers and paralegals in Washington, D.C. — typically used in “fee-shifting” cases such as civil rights or consumer protection lawsuits — where the losing party is legally required to pay the other side’s attorney fees.
“What struck me was how laborious the process was: multiple attorneys, across multiple years, often meant sprawling spreadsheets and complicated rate applications,” Ahern says. “The work was tedious and time-consuming, and the process created many opportunities for confusion or inconsistency. During the internship, I remember thinking, ‘Why isn’t there just a calculator for this?’ So I decided to build one.”
At the same time, Ahern was taking the UCDC Law Program seminar, which required a final paper analyzing an issue connected to participants’ job placements. Using that assignment to explore the inefficiencies in fee calculations and justify developing a tool to solve them, he developed what became FitzCalc.org — an automated calculator that applies the Fitzpatrick Matrix with accuracy and efficiency.
By eliminating unnecessary manual work and streamlining the process, the tool enables judges to reach decisions more quickly and gives litigating parties greater confidence in the accuracy of attorney fee outcomes.
“I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could create something at the intersection of law and technology that would endure beyond my own internship and continue to support those working with the Fitzpatrick Matrix in the future,” Ahern says. “My time at UC Berkeley Law, particularly my experiences with the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology and the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, gave me both the skills and the confidence to pursue this project.”
Professors Andrew C. Baker and Pamela Samuelson offered guidance on business and copyright law questions that arose as Ahern built FitzCalc. Professor Colleen Chien showed how a lawyer can not only engage with legal and policy questions, but also get hands-on with the technology itself — even down to the coding and technical details.
“Eric was one of the most motivated and personable students I’ve encountered during my time at Berkeley,” Baker says. “He noticed a gap in calculating damages and decided to create a useful tool for attorneys. He took the initiative to build the tool from scratch and work on getting it into the right hands.”
Vanderbilt Law Professor Brian Fitzpatrick, the original developer of the Fitzpatrick Matrix, also provided constant encouragement and support. He says that when Ahern heard “how hard it could be for attorneys to get paid when they win civil rights cases, he did something about it: He created a website to do it for them. We all could learn from his initiative.”
“Together, these opportunities and relationships trained me to spot inefficiencies, think creatively about solutions, and communicate complex issues to a broader audience — skills that proved invaluable in developing this tool,” Ahern says.
Taking the reins
There was, however, a fairly considerable hurdle.
“I had little to no programming experience before building the calculator,” Ahern says. “I saw this as an opportunity to push myself to learn the basics of coding while creating something that could be useful to attorneys, judges, and interns for years to come. Along the way, I leaned on my partner and a few friends with technical expertise, and I made use of publicly available AI tools to troubleshoot when I was stuck.”
The tool itself is built with basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Users, whether attorneys drafting motions for fees or judges, clerks, and interns verifying those calculations, enter just a few pieces of information: the year(s) the work was performed, attorney’s name, attorney’s law school graduation year, and number of hours worked on the case that year.
The calculator can handle multiple attorneys across multiple years at once and applies special rates for paralegals. Once the information is entered, the site automatically applies the Fitzpatrick Matrix and produces the correct fee award. Users can then export the results as a PDF or CSV file, making it easy for litigators to attach as an exhibit when submitting fee motions to the court.
“As someone preparing for a career in technology transactions, I think it’s critical for law students entering this field to gain hands-on familiarity with the technologies driving the industry,” Ahern says.
A Legal Studies major as a UC Berkeley undergrad, Ahern gravitated toward data privacy and intellectual property. Interest in the latter was also shaped by his life outside the classroom as a musician, including time as a summer camp music director and playing a 40-minute showcase of original songs in Berkeley last year.
Over time, his interests expanded and blended into a broader focus on technology law, with an emphasis on the legal issues raised by artificial intelligence. UC Berkeley Law courses deepened his passion for technology law — especially in areas like fair use and generative AI — and building the FitzCalc raised compelling IP questions related to the use of government data, whether the code could be copyrighted, and the tension between functionality and expression.
A Bay Area native and third-generation UC Berkeley student, Ahern will begin working in November at Morrison & Foerster’s San Francisco office as an associate in the Technology Transactions Group.
“Looking back, the most meaningful part of my time at Berkeley Law was the relationships I’ve built with professors who pushed me to think critically and with classmates who have become some of my closest friends,” he says. “Those connections have been as impactful as the coursework in shaping my growth as a technology lawyer.”