Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Although I know little about divorce law, since no one is answering your question I will try to supply some information to you. I do not know what you mean by an income expense declarations to what it would be used for outside of determining child support and alimony payments. The State Bar rules require a written retainer agreement and if one does not exist then the attorney is only allowed to collect on a quantum meritus basis [value of the work], but that often is the same amount. Unless the arbitration was agreed by both parties to be binding, if either party rejects it the case is heard as though the arbitration never occurred. Since Small Claims Court does not allow a person to be represented, especially by an attorney, you must have had a Superior Court limited jurisdiction case court trial. if the judge made a mistake of law or you discovered new facts you could not have found out before trial, you can within 10 days petition for reconsideration [it normally fails]. If a legal error was made then you can file within, I think within 30 days, a notice of appeal which will be hear as to the law [the facts will not be retried] by other judges. Not knowing fully what evidence was presented, I can not guess as to what the likelihood of winning is, but normally it is less than 50%.

You should have spoken before the trial with an attorney. Now you best chance is to hire an attorney to go over the facts and law with you and see if anything can be done and the likelihood of success.

Good luck, but it may be too late to do anything.

not proof read

To clarify, you file the appeal in Superior Court and a three judge panel of Superior Court judges hears the appeal.

I responded to your question earlier, and pointed out that more information was needed. Thank you for reposting.

With respect to question 1, as I understand your question, the income and expense declaration does not create a binding attorney client fee agreement. I agree with Mr. Shers' statement that in your situation, a written attorney client fee agreement was required, by law. With that said, as Mr. Shers points out, does not mean your attorney does not get paid. He or she is entitled to payment for the work received. It is called "quantum meruit" by attorneys, but it is really a cause of action for common counts for work performed. The attorney would be entitled to be paid a reasonable amount for the work actually performed.

With respect to question 2, you can appeal, assuming that you do so timely. Because you mention that it was a small claims court judgment, you can appeal, but not to the people that Mr. Shers mentioned. His answer would be true if it was a non-small claims court judgment in limited civil jurisdiction of the Superior Court. For small claims, the appeal is heard by a superior court judge, and the trial is de novo, meaning a whole new trial, but not a three judge panel. By law, it is not the same judge that heard the original case. (Code Civ. Proc., sect. 116.770, subd. (a).) You are also allowed to have an attorney for that case, even though you could not have an attorney for the small claims matter. The time limit for you to file an appeal is 30 days after the clerk has delivered or mailed notice of entry of the judgment to the parties. If you file a notice of appeal after that date, your appeal will not be heard and will be dismissed.

With respect to Question 3, unlike other appeals, an appeal from a small claims case is a new hearing, and is indeed a new trial.

Mr. Shers gave a pretty good and complete answer, particularly for a non-Family Law attorney. I would just add a couple of things. The reason the court in your trial did not consider the arbitration decision is because there would be no point in a "non-binding" arbitration if it was then decisive evidence in later proceedings. As for the income and expense declaration, you signed that under penalty of perjury that everything in it was true and correct. I can only presume, since you did not state what its relevance was, that it was filled in to include the statement of what had been paid and what was owed to your attorney. You say it was obtained fraudulently, but not how nor why it was fraudulent. In any case, however, you were obligated to read it, and once you signed it you had committed yourself to it being true and correct. It's pretty hard to fight that, and you will not be allowed to present any new evidence on appeal. Which brings me to your Q3: no, it is not a whole new hearing. You had your chance at trial. The appeal will only consider whether there was something done in the course of the trial that was wrong under the law that would have or could have changed the outcome under the evidence presented. If you declared under penalty of perjury that you owed the attorney the money, it's hard to imagine how an appeals panel would find the outcome of the trial incorrect. I can assure you, as Mr. Shers suggests, that without hiring an attorney now, an appeal will be a waste of time.