Firing an Attorney

Paint his house.

hahahahahahahhaha

I was going to type the same thing as Devin but then I felt bad.

(This is the guy who thinks taxation is theft at gunpoint and thinks health care should he handled on a barter system. I think he gave 500 dollars to a hobo.)

Couldn't have happened to a nicer asshole.

The waters of the Schaudenfreude river are said to be the sweetest in the world.

Did he come with good references or was he recommended by someone you trust? Or was he a phonebook find?

Look, don't come crying to us just because you hired George Costanza as your attorney. Everybody knows he always wanted to pretend he was a lawyer.

Yes, I know. There are these little things we like to do at CHUD called "Modifying a well-known joke to fit the situation."

Maybe he's fucking your (not so soon to be) ex-wife, and she spent that 500$ on jewellery.

Define a "business group."

Maybe he found him through the CHUD boards. This is an excellent place for legal advice.

Wow. I get not agreeing with the guy's politics, but this is pretty harsh.

See, now I can't even make fun of this, because the legal Chewers did in fact give me fabulous advice about the paralegal classes I want to take. Damn you, Bob!

You divorced your wife to be with Lisa?

I was in private practice doing a lot of family law for about six years. Here are some general thoughts that might help.

If you don't believe he filed the agreement with the court (if that's what he was supposed to do) or that he sent it to the scheduling clerk, you can call the court yourself to confirm. If you can catch him lying about something so fundamental, you might have a little leverage in getting him to return some portion of the money.

The type of agreement you made with the lawyer also matters. Was it a flat fee arrangement where you paid him a set amount to draft and execute the necessary documents? A lot of "uncontested" divorces are flat fee arrangements. If so and he did the work (albeit not very well), he has arguably earned his fee. If he didn't do the job, you can demand a portion (or possibly all) of your money back. If you have an hourly arrangement and the $500 was just a deposit towards the work he would be doing, you would be entitled to any unused portion. Check the statements his office sent you to see an accounting of the time and portion of the retainer the lawyer and his staff used. Of course, $500 doesn't get you very far in lawyer-land. When I was in private practice in my fairly small market, that would get you a little more than two hours of my time. And you are generally billed for phone calls, time to read letters, etc., as well as staff time spent on your case, which all comes out of your deposit.

As far as the modified standard agreement, this is pretty common. Lawyers don't retype everything from scratch. They have their forms that they modify as needed. Cutting in pasting is more efficient and actually saves the client money. Some are better than others at personalizing these forms to fit individual clients' needs. Usually, the forms are sufficient to meet the legal requirements for getting the job done, which is why the lawyer is using them. But if he left something out or screwed up in any way, again, you might have some leverage in getting part of your fee back, especially if you are going to have to hire someone else to fix it.

And the squeaky wheel definitely gets the grease from a law office. I would definitely speak to him or his assistant/paralegal/secretary (who really run the office and know case details) about your concerns first. Be specific, but also polite and civil. You can even mention you are considering making a bar complaint if they can't resolve the matter. They may be willing to resolve problems they created for no additional charge or even return some of the money you paid just to make you go away. If you don't get anywhere with the lawyer or staff and he works for a firm, write a letter to the partners of the firm outlining your concerns. If that doesn't get you anywhere and you really feel like they have done something wrong or unethical, make a bar complaint. The bar will investigate and determine whether there is any merit to your complaint.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

Hey, look, if he wants to have a long distance relationship with a short, dumpy, middle-aged secretary with a shitty temper and liberal politics who's already got a boyfriend, that's his funeral.

Amended. That'll be $500.

booyah!!

Politics aside, he's a horse's ass.

Just so you don't think I'm ignoring your plea, I have nothing to add to what jvc said. I haven't been in private practice, a long time, & never did family law to any real extent, so he'd know much beter than I what's entailed here. I will say you probably won't get all your money back, regardless.

It's not his politics. It's his crazy.

That's pretty good advice but, frankly, you're going to spend more than $500 to get your money back if you decide to fight this. The best thing you can do is call your lawyer and ask him what he/she has done.