BATON ROUGE - A federal judge says that until Louisiana's appeal of an abortion law ruling is over, he won't consider fees for lawyers who won the challenge.

U.S. District Judge John deGravelles also gave lawyers for abortion clinics 21 days to oppose the order he handed down Tuesday.

The clinics' lawyers say the state should pay them $4.7 million.

Attorneys for the state say that if they win their appeal, the clinics' lawyers won't be due anything.

The law required doctors who perform abortions to be able to admit patients to a nearby hospital. It's never been enforced.

DeGravelles overturned the law in April, under a U.S. Supreme Court decision that a similar Texas law was unconstitutional. The five justices in the majority on that ruling remain on the high court.