ica171 Posted August 4, 2007 Report Share Posted August 4, 2007 Sorry this is so long. Here's the basic timeline. DH and I got into a lot of financial trouble around October of 2005. My brilliant idea was to declare BK7, and at the time it made sense. We didn't really have the money to pay creditors, so it seemed like our only option. We moved to a cheaper place and in May 2006 we retained a BK lawyer, whom we were making payments to. After a while, our financial situation improved and I realized that creditors weren't pounding the doors down and I found this site. It gave me hope, and we decided not to declare BK7. Around late June of this year the transmission on our car went out and it needed (needs) $2000 in repairs. We had paid the lawyer $1075, and $125 was a nonrefundable retainer. We wrote a letter to the lawyer asking for the balance of $950 back. They sent us a letter with a check for $180 for "filing fees," saying that since it had been so long that was all they were refunding and that they had done $770 worth of work on the case, despite having no documents from us other than the signed retainer agreement. I sent them a letter stating that I wanted an itemized statement of what they had done on our case. I also stated that their retainer agreement says that cases will be evaluated on an individual basis when a refund is requested, and that I felt our case needed reevaluation. I also quoted their retainer agreement where they stated that no work would begin on the case until all fees were paid, and we had not yet paid them the entire amount so no work should have been done. Today we received a letter--CMRRR--that contained another check for $375 as a "goodwill gesture." They also stated that during the time we retained them we had access to the services of their law firm, whether we used them or not, and this included "holding off" our creditors and providing bankrupcty verification information to them. I know for a fact that this never happened because I never told anyone who our BK attorney was. The itemized list of charges is as follows:1. Initial client consultation providing bankruptcy legal advice .75 hour2. Review of paperwork and packet necessary to file BK .25 hour3. Initial file setup and paperwork processing 1.0 hour4. Payment processing x 5 payments made 1.25 hour Total time consumed not including creditor verifications 3.25 hours x hourly att'y rate of $160 Total att'y fee consumed less creditor verifications $520In the retainer agreement, the nonrefundable $125 retainer is supposed to include: "initial consultation, file setup, computer posting, processing of initial forms." So am I wrong in thinking that at least numbers 1-4 should be included in that $125? I also think it's ridiculous that we were charged for paying them, especially 15 minutes for a task that took maybe 3. So does anyone have advice? Any legal angle I'm overlooking? My plan is to write another letter, outlining a bit more strongly that any work they've done would have been included in the cost of the nonrefundable retainer and that we are not disputing that they get to keep that. I also plan on cc'ing this letter to the Iowa and Nebraska AG (we're in IA, att'y is in NE), the Nebraska Bar Association Ethics Committee, the FTC, and the BBB. I was going to give them a chance to send us the rest of the money before I sent letters to everyone else, but I don't think so. I feel like they're trying to jerk me around.I can post copies of the retainer agreement and all correspondence if needed. One last thing--the copy of the retainer agreement they have on file for us isn't dated, and it only has my husband's signature even though my name is on it. Is it even a legal contract? Thanks for any advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfninjauk Posted August 5, 2007 Report Share Posted August 5, 2007 I'm sure that whilst you might not agree with the rates that the lawyer paid you, you did consume an amount of his time and he has his own bills and financial obligations to meet. I'm not an advocate for lawyers and I find there charges expensive, but sometimes knowledge is power, I'm sure some of this advice in that initial consultation pointed you in the right direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ica171 Posted August 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2007 I'm sure that whilst you might not agree with the rates that the lawyer paid you, you did consume an amount of his time and he has his own bills and financial obligations to meet. I'm not an advocate for lawyers and I find there charges expensive, but sometimes knowledge is power, I'm sure some of this advice in that initial consultation pointed you in the right direction.Actually, during the initial consultation the lawyer did not do anything except explain the BK7 process. There was no mention of "you may not need to declare BK7" and no advice other than how they accepted payment. It most certainly was not a 45 minute session. And absolutely none of his time was consumed after that--we were not planning on seeing him until we had finished paying the fees, nor did we give out his name as our BK lawyer so that he had to deal with creditors. All they had to do was take our money. If I were in a more financially stable position, and if I thought that they were being reasonable, I might be more inclined to let it go. I'm not in that position, and they're charging me $500 for stuff that was supposed to be included in the $125 retainer. I don't think that's reasonable under any circumstances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sky Warner Posted August 7, 2007 Report Share Posted August 7, 2007 Talk to another lawyer... if they say the $125 includes those things.. they cant doubel charge you for them.Just my 2 pennies Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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