HIRING AN ATTORNEY CAN BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR  HEALTH   

LEGAL BLACKMAIL--TAKING CLIENTS HOSTAGE- Q:  How can you tell when an attorney is lying?  A. His lips are moving.

August 10, 2007

by Donie Vanitzian, JD

(c) 2007 D. Vanitzian  

If California can place caps on spending and caps on fees of various types of businesses -- then it needs to put caps on lawyer fees.  When attorneys make more money than brain surgeons, its time to say we've had enough.

CALIFORNIA’S “LEGAL” CLIMATE IS STORMY AS HELL!

The English dramatist, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), once said "Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed, in one self place; for where we are is Hell, and where Hell is, there must we ever be."  Whether that brilliant quote was pre- or post-attorneys, we do not know.  But, not to worry, there isn't an attorney in California that should be fearful their invoicing capabilities will be curtailed because attorneys have no Hell, they have in fact, a Safe Haven.  That safe haven is within the California State Bar.  Yes, a trade group with paying members.  Yet it should surprise no one that the Hell is saved for us--the clients.

Without dressing the news up to be worse than it is, let it suffice to say it is nevertheless, extremely troubling -- especially for consumers -- and most especially to those victims of bad attorneys.  Yet, it appears that the only entity on earth that doesn’t realistically understand California's present legal climate is the State Bar.  It is business as usual as the State Bar continues to harbor, protect, shield, cater to, and most important, "defend" its own.  One thing is certain; the State Bar does not protect consumers who are clients of attorneys and who are victims of attorneys. [FN1]

The public is "raged" and their ire must not be underestimated.  Many Californians are without employment or have taken pay cuts in the hope they can keep their jobs.  Most worry about paying mortgages, utilities, medical bills and supporting their families.  Frankly, California Legislators don't seem to give a damn about the common folk.  Those Legislators have a salary and pension that you and I can only dream of and, they are on a road none of us are privileged enough to travel because we do not possess the proper type of vehicle and cannot afford the toll fees to be able to travel on that same road.

CALIFORNIA HAS BECOME A COMPLICATED STATE TO WORK, LIVE, SURVIVE

Most Californian's grew up with an unassuming belief that the law was there to protect them.  Because those laws have not helped residential deed-restricted titleholders subject to homeowner associations across this state, those beliefs are "unreasonable."  With the onset of homeowner associations, our lives are no longer as we once knew them to be.  These groups of titleholders have all but given up on those expectations.  No matter how much you paid for that view of the sea, or how many miles of unsoiled greenbelts you are free to jog upon, there is nothing enrapturing about a homeowner association -- this type of development is pure taint.  The romantic dreams of owning ones own home and gaining freedom at an affordable price -- are gone.  The BEST these titleholders can hope for is to locate an honest and above average attorney for an affordable price on the same day they need one.

Living and doing business in the state of California appears to have become complicated beyond all measure.  California’s laws are not only “thick” they are poorly written.  Thanks to the California Law Revision (Revenge) Commission who have their dirty hands in just about any law that is repealed, rewritten, amended and twisted -- laws, some that have been on our books for decades and easily enforceable by laymen, have become plagued with crossovers and hidden meanings, rendering many of them useless and unenforceable by the very persons they were supposedly written to protect.

The REAL legal analysts that USED to become Legislator staff employees are no more.  The NEW so-called legal analysts are usually (1) someone that the Legislator owes a favor to, or (2) some kid wet behind the ears whose mommy or daddy contributed the most bucks to the Senator or Assemblyperson’s campaign and wants to pad his kid’s resume.  That "new" definition of "legal analyst" has denigrated every legislator's position in our government and the result is self-evident.  The incompetence is unmitigated.

Those once-simple business transactions now fill volumes of statute-books containing thousands of pages of what many of us term “nonsense” but still sporting language so legal that everyday citizens have to hire an attorney to translate the statutes to them.  It is no laughing matter especially when one considers that many of the attorneys we are FORCED to hire (a) don’t understand a particular area of law or the statutes themselves but will represent you in spite of that minor detail, (b) may tell you its not their area of expertise but will take you as a client anyway, (c) either way, s/he doesn’t have a clue man, but hey, at least they’ve got a Bar card!  As one attorney told me a couple years ago, “For a retainer of $5,000, I can do some research for you.”

Fast-forward:  The attorneys that DID the research after receiving the $5,000 gave me the $5,000 result as “Inconclusive” and then proceeded to keep the retainer money.  Putting the $5,000 price tag aside for a minute, understand what was REALLY lost in that transaction => A precious statute-of-limitations was ticking away in the background and dangerously close to blowing up any chance I might have had for recovery of money owed me by another person.  The attorney who was taking his time doing the research obviously talked a good game, did nothing, but substantiated his billing invoice for $5,000 just in case someone turned him or her into the Bar.  But, like the attorney told me later, “The Bar doesn’t prosecute attorneys for an inconclusive research result.” 

To the readers of this article:  would it make a difference if “I” had already performed the research, gave it to him and then hired the attorney to confirm my findings?  Is that worth $5,000?  Would you answer the question any differently if you took a research result from your prior attorney and gave it to the new $5,000 attorney and then got an answer that the research is inconclusive?  Or the best answer yet:  "I'm new to the case so I need to familiarize myself with the facts all over again--if I don't I’ll be sued for malpractice."  Oh sure.  Like, I mean, when was the last time anyone heard an attorney say they were worried about being sued for malpractice?  Here's my question:  BY WHO?  Has ANYONE ever tried to find an attorney that was willing to put their own law license on the line to SUE ANOTHER LAWYER -- A BROTHER OR SISTER LAWYER for malpractice?  That's a rare breed indeed if in fact they exist.  Before you believe any attorney that tells you they fear being sued for malpractice, do the research yourself.  Go dig up statutes that OUTLINE EXACTLY WHAT MALPRACTICE IS -- IF IT EXISTS AT ALL.  Good luck.

Hiring an attorney is tough enough, but finding one that YOU can trust and have faith in is even tougher.  Sometimes, by the time you find out that the attorney you just hired is the wrong one for you, it is too late.  It doesn’t matter if the guy who referred you to that attorney trusted him with his life; it doesn't matter if your neighbor used that same attorney for twenty years and trusts him with her life; it doesn't matter how many awards and plaques that attorney has received or how many clients he has; it only matters if YOU trust him and for what REASONS you trust him.

LEGAL BLACKMAIL--TAKING CLIENTS HOSTAGE

There's a joke so old, who knows where it originated, it goes like this: 

Q:  How can you tell when an attorney is lying?  A. His lips are moving.

The price of blackmail has just been raised and continues to get raised some more.  [FN2] You need an attorney but you can't afford one, hell you're barely making it on your meager salary as it is.  Not long ago, an attorney could be hired without a retainer agreement and could also be hired by “transaction” if that was what the client needed.  In those days, if you needed a letter to be written and a quote to write that letter you could get one, today it is nearly impossible to get a quote for a single letter.  One lawyer told me that he was obligated to write a response -- I said no you are not obligated to write ANY response, I'm not hiring you for that, I just want ONE letter.  Ten attorneys later, I could find no one to write ONE letter for me, even at $1,000 for one letter.  EACH lawyer I met with wanted a MINIMUM of $5,000 retainer before writing ONE letter and said it would be malpractice if they did not reply if a correspondence was sent back because of my initial letter.  That is so damn preposterous.  That lawyer is worried about his malpractice to the extent he will land ME in hot water and FORCE me to bankrupt myself to pay for his malpractice insurance all because he wants to glob onto a perpetual retainer agreement payroll so he can keep me mired in letters and hopefully for him, litigation that never ends.  HE -- the LAWYER does not decide to respond on my behalf => I <=  DECIDE WHETHER THE LAWYER RESPONDS OR NOT ON MY BEHALF.  That is what has happened to the Bar protecting their own members.  The members run all over the paying public.

In days gone by, (1950 to about 1985) let's say an attorney would charge $200 to write a single letter -- that meant it was just that: $200 was $200.  If the attorney had to respond to that letter after he wrote it for you, the client would receive a communication from the attorney explaining that further action is needed and what the cost of that proposed action might be.  That's what would happen before he proceeded to respond.  Not today!

Today, the attorneys elitist club adds their own measure of inflation to what they believe they are worth.  In more than one case that I am aware of, the "$200 letter" of yesteryear has become the basis for obtaining retainers from $5,000 on up and up and up.  In a conversation I had with an attorney at a cocktail party, he attempted to substantiate the thousands of dollars demanded for retainer agreements by saying, “look, once you get a paying customer, you have to keep them, the retainer agreement does that.”  At the same party, another attorney told me that he had huge student loans to pay back and billing clients was a way to accomplish that quickly so he could start showing a "profit."

ATTORNEY CHOICES FOR CALIFORNIA CONSUMERS ARE SPARSE TO NON-EXISTENT

Blame the State Bar for making all paying clients equivalent to walking bankbooks for anyone in the profession of law.  That's a scary position to be in -- especially if you are dependent on an attorney.   

By limiting the number and/or amount of attorneys that are able to practice law in the state of California consumer choices are extremely limited.  The Bar controls how many attorneys can practice law in the state and by doing that, the bar be it inadvertently or intentionally, whichever the case may be, controls fees.  The smaller the pool of attorneys to chose from, the higher the fees to hire an attorney become.

The lawyer's and his law firm’s records are privileged. Billing is subjected and it is what the attorney tells you it is.  Only the most egregious and blatant billing practices are “sometimes” exposed.  The word “sometimes” is emphasized.

In one contingency case the client, an old friend of mine, said he didn’t understand what “contingency” meant, all he, as the client knew, was what the attorney told him.  He said the attorney said wouldn’t be expecting any money from my friend until the end of the case.  Never mind that the attorney was billing like there was no tomorrow, literally a runaway train.  Never mind that the attorney took an out-of-the-country three-week vacation during my friend's intense litigation.  Oh, don’t worry, the attorney was sure to send copies of his invoices -- with his vacation postcards -- to the client -- not as a courtesy, but to cover his ass when the State Bar complaints rolled in.  "See, I sent the client timely invoices all along."  As for the accuracy of those attorney generated invoices, that's anybody's guess.  It appears that the Bar's interest is merely in the "sending of the invoices" not the authenticity of them.  Hidden somewhere in that contingency agreement that the client did not expect was a clause stating the client was responsible for the fees irrespective of the agreement being a so-called contingency.  The client ended up paying the exorbitant fees, much of which was unsubstantiated because the attorney told him/her if the fees were not paid the attorney would sue and win.

ONLY IN CALIFORNIA AND IT ONLY TOOK 24 HOURS:

But perhaps this was the best one yet:  Client hires a "washed up old geezer attorney" who advertises that he is a "seasoned" attorney who has argued Supreme Court and Appellate cases; so client gives him a $35,000 retainer deposit.  Overnight the client learns that the sleazebag attorney he just handed his $35,000 check was by industry standards, "washed up" -- a "loser."  Client learns sure he argued those cases -- but never won.  In fact, the seasoned geezer had not won ANY in the last twenty years.  Client drives to the other side of town to fire the geezer and get back his $35,000.  In walks the sleazebag-geezer with a brand new rug on his head, just got his nails done (yuk) and sporting a brand new set of alligator shoes because he was too fat for the alligator boots.  When told he was terminated and that the client was there to pick up his $35,000 check, (1) I've already begun working on your case so you won't get the full $35,000 back, (2) I don't have the check its in the bank, (3) I have to wait for the deposit to come through, another 30 days, and then it will take me another two weeks to cut you a check after I figure out what you owe me.  I cannot repeat on paper what happened next--but client recovered every cent and criminal charges were not filed.  Many other clients are not that lucky.

Another person tells me that she brought an Unlawful Detainer action against a tenant for harassment.  It turns out that Lawyer One took retainer agreement money, and then didn't do anything.  She filed a complaint with the State Bar, and at least she was able to get her retainer check back.  That does not account for lost time and money expended, and lost potential income from her commercial property during and after the attorney's incompetence.  The "tenant" along with the "problem," remains.
 
Enter Lawyer Two, who finally filed the Unlawful Detainer action.  Lawyer Two, brilliant as he claimed to be, decided he knew best how to win this.  Therefore, he put his entire client's eggs into one basket.  Inside that basket was one police report consisting of a complaint that the tenant hit the landlord.  Fast forward to "court time" and unfortunately it isn't Judge Judy where fairness is meted out with a swift bolt of lighting, this is instead, Judge California.  The landlord's attorney did not mention anything from the foot-thick file documenting the tenant's ongoing and continued harassment against her.  So the California Judge rendered his own special brand of California peace-and-love kinda justice, he rules, "I believe he hit you, but I don't think it was hard enough to justify me evicting him."
 
Now comes the lawyer's bill.  It contains the name of only one of two tenants being evicted; it shows charges AGAIN of $300 for "witness appearance fees" for two police officers who did NOT appear.  There were also charges for "services" on TWO days of trial, services for WHAT?  Who knows?  At the first day of trial, we spent sitting in the court without explanation to the client.  By 4 pm the Judge said go home and we'll have the trial tomorrow.
 
The client keeps asking for a DETAILED invoice and doesn't get one.  One of the problems in doing anything by phone with an attorney is that they deny, deny, deny.

The public is encouraged to keep filing complaints at the Bar even though it appears they protect their own. 

Consumers are encouraged to file complaints against errant attorneys: http://www.calbar.ca.gov

Consumers are encouraged to contact the author with any management and manager complaints by contacting:  http://www.certifymyass.com

~0~

[FN1] Author note: The terms “him” “his” “he” are used in this article as gender neutral. 
[FN2] Author note:  This article does not include all the good things about many wonderful attorneys as that is in another article that is due to be published later on this year; look for the third part of this article to be published soon.

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