Legal Question in Family Law in California

Re: retainer refunds

It depends on what your retainer agreement says and how much work the lawyer actually performed on your case in the four days.

If it is a typical retainer agreement, where the lawyer was to deposit the money into his trust account and bill his time against the account, then you are absolutely entiteld to get the unused portions of the funds returned. To the extent that you dispute the bill for the time actually worked, you can try to discuss it with the lawyer, directly. If that does not work, than the retainer agreement should provide for fee arbitration with the local bar association or similar.

Best of Luck!