What am I allowed to do

[melissa3]

Dear Socrateaser,

I'm between lawyers right now. I have a 4-way meeting with my ex and her lawyer Feb 28th and a pre-trial date March 6th. I'm concerned that this doesn't give me much time to aquire a lawyer, get him/her up to date with my case or give them much time to work on it.

Question:

1. Can I ask for the 4-way to be postponed myself?

2. Can I personally ask for the pre-trial date to be postponed or is an attorney required?

Thank you for your time

[socrateaser]

>Dear Socrateaser,
>
>I'm between lawyers right now. I have a 4-way meeting with my
>ex and her lawyer Feb 28th and a pre-trial date March 6th. I'm
>concerned that this doesn't give me much time to aquire a
>lawyer, get him/her up to date with my case or give them much
>time to work on it.
>
>Question:
>
>1. Can I ask for the 4-way to be postponed myself?

You can file motion for an order continuing the conference, either adversarially by serving opposing counsel and filing with the court, or you can try negotiate a stipulated continuance with opposing counsel and then submit the stipulation to the court for approval.

However, the court may not permit the postponment on grounds that it will screw up its trial calendar. And, opposing counsel may just not want to cooperate.

I'd say you either need to get an attorney now, or go to the four way and negotiate. You could send a letter to opposing counsel proposing an agenda for the meeding if there's a lot on the table, or you could just wing it.

>
>2. Can I personally ask for the pre-trial date to be postponed
>or is an attorney required?

See above.

[melissa3]

Thank you

I have one, well maybe two, more question.

The last court appearance I had was for contempt of child support. It lasted 15 min., my lawyer lawyer was extremely late, he did nothing in my defense and just agreed with whatever my ex's lawyer threw at me. This resulted in me having to pay back child supprt and my ex's legal fees out of my retirment account.

My lawyer charged me roughly $800 for this and I honestly disagree with it. (My ex's fees were only $335!!!) Based on the advice I recieved from you and from lawyers I have interviewed it seems he made a bigger mess out of my case than it already was. Also, any money I have needs to go to retaining a new lawyer.


Questions:

1. When I let my lawyer go can he refuse to drop my case if I don't pay him before hand?

2. Besides the letter I found on this site is there a proper way or a certain way to release a lawyer?

Thanks again

[socrateaser]

>Questions:
>
>1. When I let my lawyer go can he refuse to drop my case if I
>don't pay him before hand?

Depends on the jurisdiction. In some states, the case file must be immediately provided to the client when the lawyer is discharged -- in other's the attorney can demand payment of any unpaid services before releasing the case file.

However, if you have a good faith argument as to why you believe that the lawyer's fees for a particular service are unreasonable (and, the fact that your ex's fees were less than half is a pretty good argument -- but, not a perfect argument), then you should write your attorney and tell him/her that you dispute the bill as "unreasonable," and specifically detain why you believe this is so.

At the same time, you can tell him that if you can't come to an immediate resolution of this matter, that his services will no longer be required and that you will discharge him from service and seek alternative counsel.

But, I'd wait to do the firing, until you get an answer back about the fees, because you may be able to save the relationship, before it gets ugly.

The attorney doesn't have to give you your money back, but he does have to maintain the money in his trust account until such time as the matter is resolved, which gives you some leverage to negotiate, because he can't use the dough either. And, if he does, and you discover it, there's a very good chance that he would be suspended from practice, because taking disputed funds from a trust account for personal use is embezzlement/conversion.

>
>2. Besides the letter I found on this site is there a proper
>way or a certain way to release a lawyer?

I don't have anything to do with any of the other services provided on this site, nor do I have any pecuniary interest in SPARC. So, I don't know what letter you're referring to, nor do I recommend its contents.

It may be great -- it may not be -- either way, I've never read it, so I can't comment.