True the Vote, Inc. v. IRS

── True the Vote, Inc. v. IRS ── Court: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Date: April 10, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT Argued February 10, 2026 Decided April 10, 2026 No. 25-5219 TRUE THE VOTE, INC., APPELLEE v. INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE, ET AL., APPELLEES BOPP LAW FIRM, PC, APPELLANT Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:13-cv-00734) James Bopp Jr. argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs was Jeffrey P. Gallant. Michael J. Lockerby argued the cause for appellees. With him on the brief was Kaylan Phillips. Geoffrey Klimas, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, and Syed M. Reza entered appearances.  2 Before: PILLARD and WALKER, Circuit Judges, and ROGERS, Senior Circuit Judge. Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge WALKER. WALKER, Circuit Judge: Over the years, several firms have represented True the Vote in a lawsuit against the IRS. After the claims were resolved, the district court awarded attorney’s fees to True the Vote. Each firm staked its claim over the award. Bopp Law Firm, the most recent firm to represent True the Vote, filed a motion to enforce its charging lien. The district court denied the motion. We vacate the judgment of the district court and remand for proceedings consistent with this decision. I. Background From 2013 to 2017, Foley & Lardner, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, and the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence (collectively, the “Former Attorneys”) represented a non-profit named True the Vote, Inc., in its suit against the Internal Revenue Service. Then, in 2017, True the Vote switched attorneys. The Former Attorneys were out, and the Bopp Law Firm was in. Roughly a year later, the district court issued a consent order resolving the claims. See JA 1; ECF No. 150. More than another year later, the district court awarded attorney’s fees to True the Vote pursuant to the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). According to the court’s EAJA calculation of hours times hourly rate, True the Vote is entitled to almost $789,000 in fees. True the Vote, Inc. v. IRS, 2023 WL 6164045, at *3 (D.D.C. Aug. 15, 2023). That raised a question — what percentage of the fee award should each group of attorneys receive? Based on the  3 submissions in support of the EAJA award, the Former Attorneys claim they are entitled to almost $640,000, and Bopp to $150,018.98. Id. (ordering supplemental briefing addressing the amount of attorney’s fees owed); ECF No. 246 at 4 (Former Attorneys’ response); Appellees’ Br. 5. Bopp claims, based on its own billing records and fee agreement with True the Vote, that it is entitled to more than $500,000. ECF No. 247 at 5 (Bopp’s response). If none of the attorneys have a lien on the fee award, then True the Vote, the Former Attorneys, and Bopp would resolve this question out of court or in a separate lawsuit. But both the Former Attorneys and Bopp claim they have an equitable charging lien that requires the court to pay them the fees they seek directly out of the fee award, without the money first going to True the Vote. If the Former Attorneys and Bopp each have a lien, then the district court would need to determine whose lien has priority, how much that side is entitled to, and whether the other side is entitled to the rest. The district court determined that the Former Attorneys have a valid charging lien, see True the Vote, Inc. v. IRS, 2023 WL 6164045, at *3, but it denied Bopp’s motion for enforcement of its own lien. JA 71. It first determined that the question of whether Bopp has a valid charging lien must be decided under the law of Indiana, Bopp’s home state, according to the cont