Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
Legal Metor
I had 3 contracts with the Attorney XX against the same defendant:
Contract #1) personal injury (contingency), Contract #2) defendants filed counterclaim thus hired attorney XX on an hourly fee for the defense, Contract #3) filed additional cause of actions against the same defendants at an hourly fee.
Attorney attended all meetings, settlement conferences, mediation, and phone c depositions, phone calls for all 3. Plus filed and responded to all. Nevertheless she billed me 100% for all work, even though she worked on my personal injury which was to be contingent.
I asked for billing clarification, but she never clarified it. Can an attorney work on all 3 issues and bill me 100% without deducting any work for the personal injury, which was the initial complaint and the one which had a monetary value of $60K versus libel/slander/nuisance which was harder to prove? The case was settle by having defendants build a fence, thus no monetary judgement. Attorney also unilaterally closed my case, thus I hire someone else to complete the settlement.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Legal Metor
You should contact the state bar. Your lawyer's billing practices may well have been improper, but there is no way to tell based on the limited facts you have provided.
When you say the attorney "unilaterally closed [your] case", I presume you mean he quit. Attorneys are usually allowed to quit if they have sufficient reason, though they must do it in a way which doesn't cause needless harm to the client's interests. Here again, I would need more facts before I could say whether your lawyer acted properly.
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