Trying to get my money back from an attorney Does it cost clients to fire their attorney? My ex filed and was taking me to court to get back some of the child support he Paid me . That he has just dropped it but has not filed with the court to close the case. Now my attorney will not give me my money that's left from my retaining fee to me, because it is an open case so I have to pay to file the case or fire her In order to get my money. Is that a common thing that attorneys do?
It isn't 100% clear from the question if a case has been filed in court, or someone was just planning on filing a lawsuit, which is an important fact. It seems like the ex filed a court case and you hired attorneys who responded. If there is a court case filed, that can't just be abandoned until all the i's are dotted and t's are crossed in the eyes of the court. The lawyers can't quit unless the court gives them permission to do so. Usually, lawyers are entitled to be paid for all of the work they do and out of pocket charges they incur in a case, until it is wrapped up, even if some wrap up work happens after the event that determines the final outcome of the case like your ex deciding to abandon his arguments. But, otherwise, if there isn't a pending court case, you normally have the power to tell your lawyers to stop everything and give you the moment left (if any) in your retainer. At first read, it almost sounded as if your lawyers are willing to do that, but are warning you that your ex might continue to be a problem after the lawyers quit and that if that happens, it will be more costly and time consuming to start all over dealing with the threatened lawsuit that your ex made, than it would be to get it over and done with now. But, upon closer inspection, it seems that there is a pending lawsuit and that this is the issue.
I assume that you arranged a contract with some company which paid the contractor the full amount, and not you have to pay that company. If you stop paying the finance company, they will initiate legal proceedings against you to make good on your obligation, and that won't affect what the contractor does. It might not hurt you to write a formal letter (no phone calls) to the contractor stating that you require them to complete the job by some date certain, and hope that you won't have to take the matter to court. If you decide to write the letter yourself, you want to avoid saying anything that could be held against your interest, for example "I don't care how crappy a job you do, I just want this job done!": you need to be sure that what you say in a letter does not put you at a legal disadvantage. The best way to guarantee that is to hire an attorney to write the letter. If you want your money back (plus interest), you will almost certainly need to hire an attorney to write the letter. It is possible that there is an arbitration clause in your contract, requiring you to settle disputes with the firm Dewey, Cheatham &amp; Howe. In that case, your attorney might not be able to do much for you. There cannot be a clause in a contract that penalizes you simply for hiring an attorney.
I intend to close on the house as I've already signed all the loan paper work, but is there anything that can be done about a Realtor that breaks contract? You have probably waived your claim if you proceed with the deal knowing about the Realtor's conduct. What would your damages be? Could you have mitigated them by not agreeing to the deal? Also second question would it be better to seek a personal or Real estate attorney in such situations as this? Lawyers aren't that specialized. I would not recognize a "personal" attorney as something necessarily different from a "Real estate attorney" and the questions involved are not so complex that a general practice attorney couldn't handle them. Familiarity with real estate issues would be desirable (e.g. you wouldn't want to hire someone whose practice was exclusively as a criminal defense attorney or a personal injury lawyer, or a patent lawyer, for this task), but a great many lawyers who describe their practices differently would have the relevant experience and knowledge.
When people talk about the "American rule," they usually mean a system where every party pays their own legal costs, and the winner is not compensated in any way for the costs of litigation. Using that as your basis, the American system itself is actually a "hybrid." The details change a bit from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But in general: The loser in many American civil cases is required to pay the actual court costs. These are not as substantial as the attorney's fees, but they can easily run into hundreds or thousands of dollars. These costs are for things like filing fees, process servers, witness fees, court recorders and transcripts, and other costs that, generally speaking, are going to be the same no matter how much your lawyer charges. (Again, what specifically is included in costs depends on your jurisdiction). This imposes a non-trivial expense on the loser of a lawsuit, without allowing the other side to run up the costs to an outrageous figure by hiring huge teams of expensive lawyer, as is possible under the pure English system. While the "American rule" is the default rule in most or all American jurisdictions, there are generally rules that allow the Court to shift part or all of a prevailing party's legal fees to the other side under certain circumstances. For example: in many courts, if you bring a frivolous motion, or a motion designed primarily to inflate the costs of the suit, the court can require you to immediately pay any attorneys' fees expended in responding to that motion, even if you eventually win the lawsuit as a whole. This is a more specific and targeted penalty for misconduct than the English rule. Similarly, if the Court finds that the entire lawsuit you brought &ndash; or the defense you presented &ndash; was frivolous, or presented in bad faith, or under certain other circumstances, the Court can include attorney's fees in the final damage award, just as would have been done under the English rule. The result is a hybrid system. The benefit of this hybrid system, at least in theory, is that frivolous lawsuits are discouraged, but lawsuits that have some merit &ndash; even if they are ultimately unsuccessful &ndash; do not have to worry about the imposition of massive costs. However, the disincentive is not as much as it might be, since the standards courts use to judge a motion or lawsuit "frivolous" are generally quite stringent.
This is illegal, under the Fair Labor Standards Act, assuming you are not an &quot;exempt&quot; employee, which is primarily a salaried employee (your pay isn't based on how many hours you work). There are details about the complaint process here. It is useful to know that retaliation against an employee filing a legal complaint is also illegal.
You can't normally ask the court to "recuse" an attorney, because "recusal" is normally restricted to the judge leaving the case. The more common term is moving to disqualify opposing counsel.
The lawyer referred to in that article is suing in his capacity as the recipient of spam emails under California's anti-spam law. Not every jurisdiction has a law like this. I'm from Australia. In Australia, when we make laws prohibiting something, the law usually appoints a government agency to administer the law and bring prosecutions under it, and fines are paid to the government. In contrast, America has a lot of these laws where affected individuals can sue and collect the fines personally. So under the Californian law, you can get $1,000 per email for particular kinds of spam even if you haven't actually suffered any real damage: California Business and Professions Code s 17529.5(b)(1)(B)(ii). How? You need to work out who sent the spam, get evidence to prove it, and file a claim in a Californian court. Apparently you can sue in small claims court, which saves you on filing fees. It helps if you have many email accounts, because then you will receive many emails and therefore can collect many fines. One of that lawyer's wins was in Balsam v Trancos (2012) in the Californian Court of Appeal. Another example of a judgment discussing the Californian anti-spam law is Bontrager v Showmark Media.
There is no significance to using the words &quot;I&quot; or &quot;we&quot;, nor does it matter that you didn't sign the surrender paper (after al, you did not have possession of the vehicle and it is not yours to surrender). You will have gotten a notice, at the beginning of this process (when the loan was taken out) that provides information like this, in particular The creditor can collect this debt from you without first trying to collect from the borrower. The creditor can use the same collection methods against you that can be used against the borrower, including suing you or garnishing your wages. If this debt is ever in default, that fact may become a part of your credit record. When you are a loan co-signer, that means the creditor can go after you and you alone to get the money. Since it seems the creditors are pursuing you both, that beats the alternative that you have to sue her to get anything. Since there is no question that money is owed, the point of the trial is to decide who pays it: it will be one or both of you, and it won't be that the bank has to take a loss. Your attorney's job is to argue that it should not be you (her attorney's job is to argue that it should be you). Your concern should be that it's too difficult to get the money from her, and easy to get the money from you, which is why you need to hire a good attorney.