Sage Advice on Dismissing Your Attorney

Thursday, January 1, 2004 | 0

A workcompcentral.com user wrote:

My attorney just sent me a letter saying he is off the case because I am second guessing him and a substitution of attorney for me to sign. Do I have to sign this? I don't want to be pro-per and for him to get a large sum of my money being he has not done anything except commit me to a settlement. Can he back out of my case because I won't settle at this point?

Mr. Maurice Abarr, a workcompcentral.com injured worker forum moderator replied with this advice:

Essentially, you and your counsel have a conflict of interest in the case. Since you do not want to be without counsel (and since you will have a difficult time getting new counsel with a prior attorney), my suggestion is that you approach your attorney diplomatically (i.e., without anger or hostility) and ask him if he will provide you a letter that limits his attorney fee to a modest sum, then you will sign the substitution of attorney form. This way you preserve some money for the second attorney and increase the likelihood you will get new counsel. In my humble opinion, this is the best way to proceed.

It simply does not help your case if your attorney is forced to file a Motion to Be Relieved as your counsel. It raises questions to the other side (and maybe to the Judge as well - they are human, after all) as to why you are having trouble with retained counsel if your lawyer has to file his Motion. It also creates more work for him/her and decreases the likelihood that he will be reasonable with respect to accepting a more modest amount for his attorney fees.

One final word of caution, when you are negotiating with your attorney about the fee and the substitution of attorney form, you might ask him why s/he doesn't want the fight over the penalty and other issues and really listen to what this lawyer says. There are many issues that are simply not worth the effort and the most you make with them is to add a little more value to the uncontested portion of your claim.

Mr. Abarr can be contacted at: abarr@earthlink.net.