Legal Question in Legal Ethics in New Jersey
Dealing With Adverse Party?
My fiancee recently had a bad experience with her bankruptcy attorney. The practical case is that she erroneously switched from a Chapter 7 to a Chapter 13 despite owning substantial equity in her home. The attorney claims to have practiced in this field for 25 years, yet failed to inform his client of the obvious ramifications of this move. There is a record of malfeasance in every area of the case.
Worse yet, once the Trustee was named, this attorney worked for the interests of the Trustee-- a man who we later found has a long time business relationship with the attorney. The result is that a woman who set upon a course of action to see that her creditors were paid dollar for dollar has seen that taking of moral responsibility backfire. The amount of money in question, while life and death for my fiancee, is doubtless not substantial enough to interest a seasoned practitioner. Is there anything we can do on our own regarding the malpractice issues? I am also concerned with the ethical issue of an attorney who throws his client aside in favor of a party with an adverse interest.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Dealing With Adverse Party?
Get the paperwork together and 1) file a grievance if you think you've got the proof to back it up and 2) file a motion with the bankruptcy judge to replace your counsel and re-open it if necessary. Obviously, she can't continue with this attorney if there is no trust.
I usually don't buy clients getting screwed by their attorneys in cases like this: surely, she was staying on top of things! If her attorney went through hearing after hearing without any input from her, one has to wonder where she was when all of this malfeasance was going on.
Shame on him to not representing her interests and informing her of what was going on (to give her the choice of how her case would proceed) and shame on her for not taking care of her own business.
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