Legal Question in Employment Law in Pennsylvania

Re: Mediation Question

The failure to abide by a settlement is a garden-variety breach of contract. The settlement agreement was a contract, stating 30 days, and they breached it.

Let me raise a common issue. Was your agreement finalized and executed? The fact that everyone shook hands and said they agreed to something is different from having a final, signed document stating the details of the agreement. If a written agreement was never reached, but was simply agreed to, you may need to file a "motion to enforce settlement" to compel them to finally do what was agreed.

Here's the bigger issue: this shouldn't be your problem. You have a lawyer who should be communicating with you and responding to your inquiries in a prompt manner. In that regard, you have two options:

(1) Step up your efforts to contact the attorney. Call, and call again. Send them emails and letters. No one in your situation should have to wait 60 days for a response to a question about a 30 day issue.

(2) If you still can't get them to respond, tell them in writing that you intend to file a disciplinary complaint and to hire other counsel, and that you expect for them to pay all costs of the new counsel. That usually gets a response.

Finally, before you get too agitated, make sure you've asked them direct questions about the holdup and you've listened carefully to their answers. Though the lawyer is the one with the duty of communication, a number of disputes arise from the same types of miscommunications all people have, and you can't always fault a lawyer when those occur.