Legal Question in Consumer Law in Pennsylvania

I have a few questions about legal fees in Pennsylvania.

1. Is it legal for an attorney to ask you your salary and then base his fees upon your answer? I was under the assumption that fees should be based upon severity of the case and the average amount paid by others in the area for the same type of case.

2. Is it legal for an attorney to charge their normal hourly rate for work performed by paralegals on the attorney's behalf?

3. What is reasonable for expecting responses from an attorney concerning fee agreements and invoice mistakes? For example, questions were sent via email (with delivery and read receipts accepted) on 7/1/2009. No response from the attorney necessitated a resend of the questions on 7/14/2009. After this the attorney responded that they were busy and would reply to the questions shortly. Once again no response caused the questions to be re-sent every 2 weeks, and there has been no response to answer any of the questions posed as of 9/29/2009. Is this lack of communication grounds for dismissal of an attorney, and if so is the attorney required to return any retainer funds that have not been used (any credit on the account)?


Asked on 9/29/09, 9:07 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Greg Artim Morrow & Artim, P.C.

I have never heard of an attorney asking about salary, unless they consider you possibly low income and were looking to cut you a break.

Regarding the paralegal, I would certainly expect a lower rate. I would expect that to range from about 50% to 65% of the attorney rate. That being said, I don't believe that the charge is "illegal" . You need to look to your fee agreement to see what you agreed upon.

You can terminate the attorney at any time, there is no obligation to continue using him/her, ever. Regarding the retainer, you need to see what is in the fee agreement. Is it a non-refundable retainer?

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Answered on 10/04/09, 9:34 am


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