§ 103.102.Submission of Fee Report

The fee limit in Section 103.101 would be a rule nobody could check without this section.

A fee report goes to the comptroller’s judiciary section, filed by any person seeking payment for preparing, filing or curing the application.

It is filed with the application, or within 14 days after the application or cured application is filed. Either way it lands while the claim is still in front of the comptroller.

Three items must appear: the total dollar amount sought, the number of hours worked on the application, and the name of the applicant.

Those three make the hourly rule testable. Dividing the amount by the hours produces the rate, which is the number Section 103.101 governs.

The report is public information under Chapter 552 of the Government Code, so anyone can ask for it.

Public filing is what gives the fee limit teeth. A claimant who has never hired a lawyer has no way to judge whether a bill is reasonable, and a record open to inspection lets the rest of the world judge for them.

The duty falls on the person seeking payment, not on the claimant. Someone who has spent years in prison is not the right person to police a lawyer’s billing, and the section puts the paperwork on the biller.

Filing the report with the claim keeps both in one place. The comptroller sees the hours claimed while the application is live, alongside the documents that decide eligibility.