Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Indiana

I hired a lawyer to handle my child support case in July 2006. He took a long time to even ask for a court date, then cancelled court date 2 weeks before court because of medical reasons. In January 2009, I recieved a letter from my atty stating that he has taken a medical leave and has given my case to another atty in his law firm. This atty again takes forever to ask for a court date. I told her it will be 6 months til our court date once she files for it. Sure enough she doesnt't file for it until Feb 2010. Our court date is set for Sept 2010. I originally paid my atty $750. He never charged me additional fees. This atty he gave my case to is charging me $4,365.00. Is this reasonable? I had to wait 4 yrs to get a court order. With 3 1/2 yrs of them doing nothing. I recieved a bill from her after we agreed I would start paying when I started recieving my child support. I called her to let her know I hadn't started recieving support yet and today I recieved another bill for an additional $105.00 for calling her to let her know why i hadn't paid yet. Is this acceptable practice? Also, How can my atty give my case to someone else and never be told I would be charged an unbelievable amount? We never even set foot in a court room. Can I fight these fees?


Asked on 10/30/10, 11:52 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Sure you may be able to fight them. It is not only inappropriate to charge you for calling about your bill but is probably unethical. If complete disclosure was provided about the billing practices and you were provided an itemization and the work on the itemization was performed, you owe the money regardless of not getting into court yet. It might be time to change lawyers if it has taken over 4 years, nothing has happened and you are not a cause of the delay..

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Answered on 11/07/10, 6:11 pm


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