Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
My company was fired as property managers by an old man. We told him we were going to sue him since we had a yearlong agreement and he cancelled it 4 months in. We told the old man to retain an attorney. We received a letter from an attorney saying he has been �contacted� but not �retained� by the old man. The attorney requested a bunch of information. We know from dealing with the old man that he will not write a check to retain an attorney (since he is cheap and going crazy) and likely merely contacted this person for advice. Here are my questions:
1. Do we need to provide the attorney with anything since he has not made it clear he has been retained? We are worried about providing confidential information, and also think that he has not been officially retained.
2. The information the attorney requested is already held by the old man and would take time, effort, and money on our parts to provide it to the lawyer. Can we tell the lawyer to get it from the old man? I don�t think discovery rules apply at this point, and I do not want to make his job any easier, and prefer to make the old man have to provide all the documentation as I don�t see a reason to give him any favors.
3. The lawyer asked for documentation that our management company was terminated. It was only orally told to us that we were terminated, will that suffice? Need we provide anything we do not deem as relevant?
Any other advice is appreciated.
2 Answers from Attorneys
You are not required to but if your client sues you or you sue him you will be required to.
It may be cheaper for you to provide it now and try to work it out with the attorney.
It seems like you will encounter problems if sued and may end up paying his attorney fees and costs.
Discovery is only allowed if there is a pending lawsuit, not a future threat of one. There is a provision for a party to obtain discovery prior to a lawsuit, but that would require a court order.
If this person has an attorney, you may want to consider an attorney of your own to prepare to defend against any possible lawsuit.
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