Attorney Issues

[smoking gnu]

Good evening to you all,

In July 2006 I hired an Attorney to help me purse joint custody of my six year old son.  We agreed on a 3,000 dollar retainer fee that was to be paid before anything was done. I paid the retainer in full by August 31, 2006.  I received a statement from my Attorney showing that the balance was paid. Everything appears to be fine and she tells me that she will need 300 dollars to file the petitions for joint custody and a  name change. After paying the court costs, I am told that I we will have a court date in a couple of weeks.  A month goes by and I hear nothing from my attorney.  I make a call to her office and get the answering machine.  I continue to try her office once a week for two weeks. On the third week, I tell the answering service that I've been leaving messages for nearly three weeks now and I haven't receivd a call back from my attorney.  The answering service becomes defensive and tells me that they gave her the messages. I tell them that I'm not blaming anyone and I'd just like to know what's going on with my case.  That afternoon I my attorney calls and tells me that I owe her answering service an apolige. I proceed to tell her that I was not rude and I do not understand why they are making an issue out of my call. She says "Well, I guess it's the nature of the business".  Now that I've got the attorney on the phone, I ask about my court date. She tells me that her legal assistant must have shredded my check for 300 dollars that I'd written back in October (We are now in mid November), and that I need to write another.  At the end of our conversation she says that there are no hard feelings and that she was only joking about me apologizing to her answering service and asked that I be patient about my court date.  Months go by and I finally make contact with my attorney at the beginning of March 2007.  She tells me that my case was thrown out of court because the courts had the wrong address and could not server the papers to my son's mother.  I checked the email that I'd sent to the attorney and it was the correct address. My attorney had her legal assistant call a week later and tells me that I need to  send 500.00 dollars to cover court costs.  She said that court fees are like gas prices while explaining to me why they are now 200 dollars more than they were back in October 2006.  I paid the money, and she said that we'd have a court date in 10 days. A month went by and I've been calling every Thursday for the past two weeks. Last week I spoke with the legal assistant and I hear the attorney in the background say "tell him that I'm with a client and I'll call him back in 15 minutes". I said "Great, I'm at work and I'll wait here for the call". I waited an hour and 15 minutes and did not receive a phone call.  

I've considered filing an ethics complaint, but I have no money to hire another attorney.  

I now turn to you for advice.

Thanks,

gnu

[notnew]

Contact the Attorney Grievance Commision in your county and file a complaint against this attorney.

Go to the web site for your court and see what the fees are for yourself. The fees do not change like that. She is full of crap. Besides, she should be paying the fees out of your retainer.

Has she sent you any statements of the account?

Call the court house (clerk's office) and ask them if there have been any filings in your case. Then go down to the court and pay for copies of the filings so you know what has happened. I suspect that there have been NO filings in your case.

Don't contact your attorney until after you have done these things.

Then, send her a certified letter return receipt requested informing her that her services are terminated due to her failure to properly represent you and that you are requesting your retainer to be returned and all paperwork immediately.

If there has been any filings in the court on the case and she is the attorney of record,  you need to notify the court that she has been terminated and  you are seeking new counsel. Then go find someone else.

This should be a lesson learned, check out references and interview several attorney's before decidinng on one.

You've gotten a bum deal with a bad attorney. She should be disbarred. Please follow through with a complaint so her actions are on record.

I hope things go better for you with a new attorney.

[smoking gnu]

Hi notnew,

I guess I needed to hear advice from someone not emotionally involved in my situation.  Tomorrow I will move forward with this and call the clerk of court.  I haven't received any statements from my attorney and have told her so.

 I've recorded all of my phone calls to her office beginning the day she told me her legal assistant shredded my check. Come to think of it, the attorney seems to pass a lot of blame onto her legal assistants. I've told her several times that I haven't received any correspondence from her office about my case, billing, or anything. She told me that her legal assistant must have overlooked me. I did not buy the excuse, but was intimidated and worried that if I pissed her off, she'd excuse herself from my cased and keep my retainer. I now realized that the mistake has been made, and If I want a shot at custody, I need a competent attorney.

 I'll say goodnight by quoting the Irish dramatists George Bernard Shaw.  "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

Thanks again,

gnu

[smoking gnu]

I've contacted the clerk of court today. The attorney has never filed anything in my name.  What should I expect once I file the complaint and send the letter terminating the attorney's service? Has anyone reading gone through this before?

Thanks,

gnu

[notnew]

Since she hasn't filed anything in your case, then she is not the attorney of record so you don't need to file anything with the court advising them she has been released from the case.

You should send her a certified letter ASAP advising her that you know she has filed nothing and let her know her services are terminated and request a complete refund of all monies you have paid out to her immediately. Since she has done nothing, this should not be a problem.

Contact the attorney grievance commission today. My state has a form on-line that you can print and fill out to file your complaint. You need to check it out asap. I would call them as well to speak with someone about what is going on and let them know you are filing a complaint and terminating her services this week.

Look for another attorney too. The attorney grievance commission should have a list of attorneys who have been reprimanded or barred from practice so you can  know who to stay away from.

I have not been in your exact position, just dealt with a lax attorney who basically threw me under the bus in agreeing to things I didn't want to be put in place and now I have to live with them forever because the "circumstances" haven't changed enough to modify the order. So, you are fortunate this bad attorney hasn't done any damage yet.

It's not difficult, just write a professional business like letter. Don't get emotional. It's a business relationship, treat it that way.

I think there may be a template letter on here for this exact thing. Search around on the site and see what you can find.