It works like this: You interview the lawyer and helpfully give him/her all the information you have regarding the case. He seems knowledgeable, and it seems that you can work well together. You pass on documents related to the case. The lawyer then takes a retainer, in my experience anywhere from $600 to $10,000. You assume the lawyer has accepted the case. You pass on more documents. The lawyer says he is reading them. When you talk to him he doesn’t seem very familiar with them, but you assume he just needs a little time to get up to speed. You have some phone conversations and emails. The lawyer says encouraging things about your case, though he gives you little solid legal advice.
But after a month or two, it seems that no real work has been done. Letters from the opposing party have not been answered, the lawyer is not meeting the schedule he promised he would meet, and he still does not seem familiar with the documents. Often, the lawyer does not answer your emails, or not most of them. You politely prod the lawyer several times.
Eventually, the lawyer tells you he cannot accept the case after all—even though all this time, you assumed he _had_. He gives one or more of the following reasons: There are a lot of documents related to the case—even though you told the lawyer that to begin with, and even though you sent him the documents before you sent his retainer. This is accompanied by loud, theatrical complaints about all that reading. The case will take too much time—accompanied by more complaints. The case is in a neighboring county and even though the lawyer initially told you he practiced in that county, suddenly it appears he does not. The lawyer is about to go on vacation for several weeks—which he presumably planned beforehand, but which he never told you about.
Now comes the kicker: The invoice, which is the lawyer’s justification for keeping your retainer or a hefty portion of, it, or even billing you in addition to the retainer. The invoice is in great detail, and in 15-minute increments or so. On closely examining it, you discover a long list of documents the lawyer supposedly read, but with which he never seemed familiar when you talked to him. He claims he spent an hour apiece on things like reading a five-sentence email from you containing questions he never responded to. There are several pages of this reading and research “work” that you cannot prove the lawyer did not do, but which did not benefit you in any way.
Furthermore, if you want to continue your case, you have to pay up without protest. Most lawyers in any small geographic area know each other personally. They always believe a fellow lawyer rather than a client. A lawyer who scammed you will not hesitate to complain loudly to other lawyers that you did not pay up, blackening your reputation to the extent that no one will take your case _but_ a scam artist. The lawyer who dropped your case—or rather, claims you never hired him—also is likely to complain to the other lawyers about all those documents that must be read, the obnoxiousness of the opposing party in your case, and generally, everything that will justify his actions and his invoice, and erase any doubts as to his ethics.
Both my husband and I interviewed all these lawyers at length before hiring them. Indeed, they all gave more legal advice in the pre-hiring interview, than during the entire time they were supposedly working for me. After the first three lawyers scammed me, I had another lawyer whom I know personally (the case was out of state, so he could not do the legal work himself) help to screen and interview the fourth lawyer. The fourth lawyer _still_ scammed me. I signed a retainer agreement with each of these lawyers saying he would represent me in X case–which apparently is as specific as retainer agreements get. They all sounded eager to take the case, and were full of plans for things they’d do right away. None of which they did. I discovered that trial lawyers are professional-level actors.
The first lawyer even got information from me about the case, then said he wanted to go represent the opposing party. I could go on; but anyway, I discovered that pretending to take the case, charging for “reading documents” and talking to the client, and otherwise doing nothing, until the retainer is used up, seems to be a fairly common scam with certain definite patterns. I’ve lost over $9000 between four lawyers for no services rendered.
** Disclaimer: This post was written by a guest author. The information contained in this article should not be taken as a fact, but only as an indicator. The story represents the authors individual experience with the subject in question. As such it can be true or misrepresented and in some cases even purely fictional in an attempt to harm the company or individual in question. You are advised to use your own judgment to realize the truth behind the story.
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