I think my lawyer is trying to screw me

[Dig]

What is the name of your state? NJ

I am invloved in a case regarding a business that had 3 partners. Me and two others. One of the partners invested some money but started taking money out of the account without the knowledge of the other partners. When he was caught the money was moved to another account and he promptly quit the company and started a law suit against the other partners.

I have a complete paper trail including some laundering of money that he did regarding his wife. I set up a time line, an excel spread sheet, and lots of emails showing where all the money went and how my other partner and I were not allowed access to the accounts for over a year, while he was taking money.

I hired a lawyer for $300/hr and so far have spent close to $7000 on phone calls, letters and 1 mediation. By the way, when the mediator was through he told us that we had the much stronger case and whould go after this guy and "take him down."

My question is that my lawyer is sayng it will cost close to $20K to battle this in court in front of a judge and I cannot figure this out. There are only 3 participants in the case, no withnesses, or other parties to call on.

If each lawyer spent 3 hours each on each individual that would only be 9 hours each on questioning and cross-examining. I cannot imagine 3 hours of direct and cross for something so small as this.

We also have to take Deps prior. OK so I setup a spread sheet and figured 5 hours for a dep, which I think seems like a long time to dep 1 person about 1 thing.

But no matter how I add the numbers I have a hard time pushing $9K between the deps and 2 full days at court.

Sorry for being long winded but I wanted to give some background. What I would like to know is if anyone has had a case similar to this and if they can give me an idea on how long the trial took? 1 day, 2 days, 10 days? This is not a jury trial.

I need to present all this to my lawyer to keep things honest (there is a joke there somewhere).

Thanks for the help.

 

[lapatta]

I have dealt with 5 different lawyer in past over several different matters including litigation and my firm opinion is that all lawyers are blood sucking machines. They will wring you to the last drop of your blood and you cry no more . They are never interested in settling any case since its not in their best interest !! They want just billing hours

The lawyers get you for several creative charges - how can you dispute a 5 sentence letter took 10mins or 1hrs to write. (I had questioned this and the response was "research" !)

For example, for deposition you will have deposition preparation fee (at least 4-8hrs), file organization fee(3-4hrs), deposition (are you kidding 3hrs?, it will be whole day affair), plus your deposition from opposing counsel. Depositions are very expensive and will cost easily 10k with court reporter fees.

The current lawyer index is 3x - so if he said $20k - be ready to pay 3x20 = 60k final bill .....

 

[dcatz]

I'm sorry any blood sucking machine with a similar case can't respond - no billable hours.

 

[Rexlan]

If you are that well organized and have very good and accurate documentation you might consider handling this yourself if your Courts allow Partnerships to have self representation – they may not. It does sound pretty straight forward.

Dctaz has been very helpful on this forum and he knows his stuff. lapatta comments are out of line and you thread title is not in good taste. Attorneys are expensive but not necessarily efficient, especially if they are not current with the subject matter, in your case partnerships. I am assuming you had no written partnership agreement. I don’t know if NJ has a Uniform Partnership Law that you can use if you did not but you should check that. My home state, Alaska, does and it spells out the responsibility and duties clearly.

What also works well if you can write and gain access to a West Law account for a month is to hire an attorney as a coach and pay them a flat fee. I have done this twice with great success. The coach fee gets you advice on demand (quick 3 minute call stuff), pointed in the proper direction at all times, keeping you in-line with procedure and proof reading your documents. I paid my last one $3K for the service and felt I got a great value and so did he. I did the work however, and the hearings.

 

[Quaere]

The title of your post adequately describes your question. It is in the best interest of every honest lawyer, to help identify those that have no place in the profession. At the same time, an honest lawyer would be glad to know his client is addressing his concerns by asking around and getting other opinions. KEEP checking this out until you are satisfied that you can trust your atty. Consult with another lawyer and get a second estimate.

The cost of the pretrial work usually exceeds the cost of appearing AT the trial. You will be charged for every bit of communication that goes on between the parties. You will be charged for pretrial discovery (written and depositions) and major bucks. As you know, you will be charged for every bit of communication between yourself and the atty.

With an atty that charges $300 per hour, $20,000 to get a multiple defendant case through trial sounds plausible. If he’s good and does ONLY what he really needs to do, he may do it for a lot less, but he should give you what he thinks will be a high estimate.

There is only one way to protect yourself from unnecessary charges. You have to learn as much about your case as you would if you were representing yourself. You have to know so much about your own case, that you can make informed decisions about the necessity of the actions your atty suggests to you. Otherwise you are vulnerable to both atty incompetence and dishonesty.

There are attys that would oppose ( and bill you for) the opposition’s request for a continuance because the opposition has to bury his mother. The opportunity to file hopeless motions or objections will come many times in the course of litigation. Some attys will file with abandon and charge you for the work. Many of them justify this to themselves and their clients as "vigorous representation".

Finally, many attys will fire a client that does not seem to trust them. They feel such clients are a malpractice claim waiting to be filed. If your atty is charging $300 per hour, he is not desperate for work. If he thinks reasonable efforts to earn your trust have failed, he will decide you are a risk he doesn’t need to take.

 

[Dig]

Thanks for your replies. The idea of knowing as much as I can appeals to me very much, which is why I decided to post here. I have done much of the work for the attorney. I have done spread sheets, went through 100s of emails and documented each one including and index and spent over an hour describing indetail what has taken place.

The plaintiff, sent a large box with his receipts and an index to it all. I went through every page and rewrote the index and wrote an explaination to each and every entry as to what was fictious and why and what was real and why.

We had a mediation where everything was explained and I as said before the mediator favored us and felt the plaintiff was lying after questioning him.

What I need to know now is how to I find the rest of the information so I can speak to the attorney on his level. I have not questioned him on anything to make him feel he needs to distrust me but I have stopped retainers as I realized this was just money that he could freely bill for. I told him that I would pay him as he did his work and this seems to work better now. This retainer idea is amazing to me, it is like tenure, could you imagine going to a doctor and having him say, ok you need to leave me 10K before we start ( yes I realize insurance play a part in this but...).

Anyway, can someone provide me with a website or point to a path where I can get cases similar to mine or speak to someone for a small reasonable fee that could help me better equip myself. Again it is like you health, you must sometimes take charge of understanding your problem before you let someone cut you up.

I don't think of lawyers as blood suckers but I do believe that whenever any professional wants to do a job based on an hourly rate there is an easier chance of getting screwed.

Thanks for the help.

 

[You Are Guilty]

Anyway, can someone provide me with a website or point to a path where I can get cases similar to mine or speak to someone for a small reasonable fee that could help me better equip myself. Again it is like you health, you must sometimes take charge of understanding your problem before you let someone cut you up.

http://www.njsba.com/lawyer_referral/

Find the one closest to you and get a referral. They're usually $25-$50 for 30 minutes, and you can put your mind at ease.