Legal Question in Legal Malpractice in Illinois

Re: conflict of interest??

I take it your name is Al! Your message appeared like:

"addition--name removed-- leg--name removed-- fees" !!!

Ha-ha-ha!

Seriously, you may correspond directly with me without fear

that I will divulge what you say to your ex-attorney or to

anyone else for that matter, ALthough I can't vouch 100% for

e-mail security, I think the chances of a leak are slim. My

e-mail address is [email protected]. However, I caution you

that I am not your attorney, you are not my client, and I am

not skilled enough in any of your state's laws (which differ

from the laws of the state where I have my training and license,

Massachusetts!). But I'll throw some guesses at you and ask you

not to rely upon them ultimately for any decision or course of

action you may make.

And don't try to sue me for malpractice later, please!

My opinion, though, is this: The offending clause

in the fee agreement to which you point is quite standard

even in states that have the same rule 1.8f you cited,

or at least in my state, Massachusetts, and is not seen

as a violation of the limitation on liability. The clause

merely projects or warns you that, verbal statements

notwithstanding, you are on notice that you have to

pay even if you don't like the results, that the contract

is an hourly one, and is not a contingency fee contract.

Both forms of contract are actually suggested to lawyers

as samples in the same law that governs lawyers, so it's

clear that the clause wasn't meant the way you take it.

What did the clause mean, then? Besides just trying to

warn you that you would pay no matter what the results,

and to warn you that on an hourly basis no lawyer guarantees

results, it doesn't do much. The key question to address

is whether it purports or attempts to limit liability

as you say. The answer is no.

In a way, it seems to limit liability in that if you were

to claim that you'd been promised a verdict of xxxxx, this

would contradict your claim.

continued ...

Stuart Williams

Law Offices of Stuart J. Williams

21 Walter St.

Re: conflict of interest??

So what would be a limitation of liability? Here's one example:

a) client agrees not to sue attorney for malpractice. Here's another:

Client agrees that in the event of a malpractice claim by client

against attorney that damages will be limited to ... (say ...) twice

fees or 100 East Albanian shekel-francs whichever is higher.

c) Liability is limited to our fees and does not include consequential

damages resulting from our errors ... all of these appear to me to be

the illegal clauses envisioned by 1.8f.

Where does that leave you? You absolutely can bring a

a malpractice claim without regard to that clause. Your

claim isn't that you were promised good results, but that

any lawyer worth his salt would have been able to [ whatever:

defeat the summary judgments, etc. ] but that this lawyer

couldn't / didn't do that. But that is a results-oriented

claim, which is weak compared to a practice-oriented

claim: here was the other sides motion for S.J. and here's

the low-quality memorandum in opposition that he wrote; any

competent lawyers and this layman can do a better job that

that and he had a duty to do such a better job. If the guy /

gal was a boob and fouled things up, you can sue but watch out

for the short statute of limitations; you might have two years

or even less to bring your suit, depending on your state's laws.

Last comment: it often doesn't take that much to set aside a summary

judgment, and thus there often isn't much in the way of harm; oh,

that's another point ... you have to show damages to sue someone and

if you reversed the judge's opinion and got the cases straightened out

without irreperable harm, there are less in the way of damages.

You might, in the end, only want to get as 'damages' what you are being

billed and/or what you were paid already.

FYI, attorneys aren't given any upper hand in fee collection

cases, and pro se defendants are given a lot of leniency as well. It is

unseemly for an attorney to sue for fees and the rules here require he

try all reasonable alternatives first. You could agree to arbitration

and make your case more informally; keep in mind that your starting

point COULD be that he owes you a refund for some (all?) of what you

already paid him, while his starting point is his accounting for the

hours he spent which you've agreed to pay him for. If your starting

point is "I don't owe him any more" then a middle ground will have you

paying him at least some of what you owe him. ... Get my drift?

tuart Williams

Law Offices of Stuart J. Williams

21 Walter St.

Newton, MA

02459-2509

[email protected]

Stuart Williams

Law Offices of Stuart J. Williams

21 Walter St.