Legal Question in Family Law in California
My family law atty is billing me $4800 as a final bill, and I disagree that we owe her anymore due to her errors, overcharging, and us telling her countless times, we could no longer afford her, and then she would make a deal with us for one more day, then it would end up being continued, she dragged the trial on for 3 days. I have lost my retainer agreement, I asked her for a copy and she ignored it. I asked her to remove me from my case, she said she would and has not done so as far as I know, not showing that she has filed anything in court either.
She keeps sending me invoices saying she has reported me to her collections dept and litigation. (she works alone) She emailed me often to demand her money after I told her we couldnt pay anything. I even sent her a itemized statement of all the errors I found over the course of the year on her bills, (which I couldnt do in the middle of the case, for fear of retaliation in performance in court) I think we overpaid if anything. We never paid her a dime of our own money, all money was paid by my mom or my stepfather, even though I signed the retainer, my mom paid it with her CC, we told her we were borrowing everything, and she said it wouldnt be more than 3500. But it ended up being 16,000. now she wants 4800 more. She has not sent e anything about arbitration, but I would rather avoid court, as I think it is never fair, and we have been completely screwed in small claims before. I think she will want to avoid also, because she knows she has plenty of things that could come up against her with billing, performance.
So is there a technicality about the retainer? She wont give me a copy? I want to see all her records, I emailed that to her and she has ignored me. what can I do ?
1 Answer from Attorneys
While there are always two sides to most every disagreement and most of what you say is broad generalities with no specifics, there are a couple of things you describe that are clearly wrong: refusing to provide you with a copy of your file on request and failing to withdraw from the case on your request. Both of these are matters that should be brought to the attention of the State Bar. It is quite likely you have meritorious complaints about the other issues you list, and the State Bar will be able to assess those with you and help you with any that have merit as well.
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