TRIAL BY CHECKLIST: ATTORNEY’S FEES IN AN ESTATE
March 16, 2011 § 15 Comments
A practice tip about trial factors is here.
I previously posted here about what it takes to comply with the UCCR to document your claim for attorney’s fees in an estate.
Ordinarily, attorney’s fees claims are governed by the factors in McKee v. McKee, but in an estate, the factors are slightly, but significantly, different.
In estate matters, the proper factors to consider in determining reasonable attorney’s fees are:
- The time and labor required, the novelty and difficulty of the questions involved, and the skill requisite to perform the legal service properly;
- The likelihood, if apparent to the client, that the acceptance of the particular employment will preclude other employment by the lawyer;
- The fee customarily charged in the locality for similar legal services;
- The amount involved and the results obtained;
- The time limitation imposed by the client or by the circumstances;
- The nature and length of the professional relationship with the client;
- The experience, reputation and ability of the lawyer or lawyers performing the services; and
- Whether the fee is fixed or contingent.
In re Estate of Johnson v. Moore, 735 So. 2d 231, 237 (¶27) (Miss. 1999) (quoting Moreland v. Riley, 716 So. 2d 1057, 1062 (¶16) (Miss. 1998)).
In the case of Catchings v. Estate of McCullough, decided March 15, 2011, the COA reviewed a chancellor’s decision that reduced attorney’s fees in an estate. The attorney claimed $88,000 in fees in connection with a $300,000 estate, but the chancellor found that the amount of work done did not warrant that amount of fees and reduced the fee award to $36,000, based on application of the Johnson factors stated above. The COA found no abuse of discretion and upheld the chancellor’s determination.
If you have an exceptionally large claim for attorney’s fees in an estate, it would be a good idea to attach your and a fiduciary’s affidavit itemizing the time spent and addressin each of the Johnson factors.
CONTINGENT FEES IN DOMESTIC CASES
February 1, 2011 § Leave a comment
Rule 1.5 (d) (1) of the Mississippi Rules of Professional Conduct provides that “A lawyer shall not enter into an arrangement for, charge or collect any fee in a dmoestic relations matter, the payment or amount of which is contingent upon the securing of a divorce or upon the amount of alimony or support, or property settlement in lieu thereof.”
In their treatise, PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR MISSISSIPPI LAWYERS, MLI Press, 2010, at § 22:10, professors Jeffrey Jackson and Donald Campbell state:
Under Rule 1.5 (d) (1), a contingent fee is unethical in a “domestic relations matter” where payment is contingent upon securing a “divorce or upon the amount of alimony or support or property settlement.” The policy behind this traditional prohibition is to prevent lawyers from taking a fee position that might give the lawyer an incentive to oppose reconciliation of the parties. The language of the prohibition refers to “domestic relations matters” rather than only to divorce. As such, that language would prevent a contingent fee in cases involving separation of persons who cohabited but were unmarried. Too, the reference to “domestic matters” and to “property settlements” would prohibit a contingent fee in negotiating pre-nuptial and post-nuptial agreements between parties about to join as a couple, or considering the possibility of separation. The state bar’s opinion is that Rule 1.5 (d) (1) does not, however, prevent a lawyer from charging a contingent fee for the collection of past due support or alimony. [Citing Miss. Bar Ethics Opinion 88]
ATTORNEY’S FEES IN AN ESTATE
January 19, 2011 § 2 Comments
Every administrator or executor is required by Uniform Chancery Court Rule (UCCR) 6.10 to have an attorney to represent him or her in connection with administration of the estate.
The attorney’s fees of the administrator or executor are not the obligation of the estate, but are the personal obligation of the fiduciary, but they may be allowed by the court as part of the administration expenses. Scott v. Hollingsworth, 487 So.2d 811, 813 (Miss. 1986). In order to be properly allowed by the court as administration expense, the attorney’s fees must benefit the estate, and fees which do not benefit the estate are properly disallowed. Estate of Collins v. Collins, 742 So.2d 147, 149 (Miss. App. 1999).
In making his determination of an attorney fee award, the chancellor must weigh several factors:
“The factors which the chancery court considers in fixing the amount of reasonable compensation are varied. Among those factors, however, are the following: time, skill, the responsibility, the monetary value of the estate administered and its liquidity, the speedy disposition of the business, the services of the attorney, the practice of attorneys in that court and the charging of fees for similar services, the complexity of the issues, and the necessity of litigation concerning the estate business.” Scott at 814.
I disallowed a claim of more than $20,000 for attorney’s fees in an estate where no action had been taken in 18 months after the qualification of the fiduciary, the fiduciary and not the attorneys had done most of the work, the attorneys were charging more than $350 an hour, the reasonable hourly rate in this district is $185, the estate was fairly simple and should have been closed in less than a year, and a substantial portion of the fees were attributable to the fiduciary resisting the sole beneficiary’s efforts to have him ousted for inaction.
If you want to get paid for your services to the fiduciary, you had better become very familiar with UCCR 6.11 and 6.12.
This judge will require that an itemized statement of services rendered by filed in the court file and, preferably, be attached as an exhibit signed and sworn by the fiduciary. The old practice of filing a broad, general statement of services without showing the time expended, is no longer acceptable. The purpose of an itemized statement is to disclose to all interested parties what services were rendered for the benefit of the estate, and to allow them an opportunity to be heard, pro or con. The best practice in a final account is to attach the attorney fee statement as an exhibit to the petition to close so that all interested parties will have notice and opportunity to agree by joining in the petition or to contest it.
If the petition for fees is based on recovery of damages for wrongful death, UCCR 6.12 imposes some specific and stringent requirements. The fee allowed ” … will be fixed by the chancellor at such sum as will be reasonable compensation for the service rendered and expense incurred without being bound by any contract made with any unauthorized persons.” Any agreement for a contingent fee must be approved in advance by the chancellor. In other words, if you don not get your contract approved in advance, you will be working on a quantum meruit basis rather than on a contingency.
A CHECKLIST OF CHECKLISTS
December 15, 2010 § Leave a comment
Proving your case by proving certain factors is a fact of legal life in Mississippi. I’ve referred to it as trial by checklist.
Here are the checklists I’ve posted (you can click on the links to get to them):
Modification of child support.
Periodic and rehabilitative alimony.
Income tax dependency exemption.
Those are all of the checklists of which I am aware. If you know of others, please let me know and I will add them to the list.
I also posted a checklist for closing an estate, but it’s a procedural cheklist rather than a substantive checklist.
FAMILY LAW IN THE FAST LANE
October 29, 2010 § Leave a comment
This article is copied from the Washington Post online edition. After you read it, you may have an unsettling sense of unreality. Lawyers charging $850 an hour for a divorce? Billing for more than 7 hours a day, 365 days a year? Billing for as many as 71 hours in a day? $624,000 in fees for a divorce trial? I am not making this up.
High-priced lawyer sues former client, then agrees to pay him $102,000
By Tom Jackman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 25, 2010; 6:29 PM
Glenn C. Lewis is an acknowledged titan of the D.C. area divorce bar, a former president of the Virginia Bar Association who boasts that he is the most expensive lawyer in the region: $850 an hour. He has an impressive office in the District and an array of high-profile clients.
So it fascinated the Fairfax County courthouse when Lewis sued one of his former clients for an additional $500,000 in fees and interest, although he’d already been paid $378,000.
The fascinating part was that the client, a lawyer himself, fired back. He hired another former state bar president, Bernard J. DiMuro, who dug through Lewis’s billing records and hired two more divorce bar giants – including another former state bar president – as his experts. The experts said Lewis had done a poor job and didn’t deserve nearly $900,000 for his work.
In Fairfax Circuit Court on Friday, Lewis capitulated. He agreed to pay his former client more than $102,000, including $25,000 in sanctions imposed on Lewis’s lawyers for defying pretrial orders. Lewis even failed to show up for his own deposition.
Lewis, who for years hosted his own cable access television show, and who was given a lifetime achievement award from the Virginia State Bar’s family law section, remains unrepentant. His final bill for the divorce of Steve Firestone was $627,000, and he sought another $253,000 in interest for the case, which ended in 2004 without a trial less than a year from the time it was filed.
“He owed us more than that,” Lewis said in an interview last week. “We earned more than that. I feel as strongly today as I did the day we filed [suit], that Mr. Firestone owed every penny of it.”
Firestone said, “I thought that what I paid was egregiously high,” and he stopped paying shortly before his divorce was finalized. Then he received the lawsuit seeking another $500,000 five years later.
“I was shocked,” Firestone said. “If he won, we were going to be out on the street.”
Firestone hired DiMuro, who doesn’t do divorce law. But DiMuro obtained Lewis’s billing records and the records of the divorce, which he then handed over to Joseph Condo and Robert Shoun, two longtime family law practitioners.
Their conclusion: Not only were Lewis’s bills “flagrantly disproportionate to the value of the dispute,” DiMuro said, but Lewis’s settlement was a lousy deal. Firestone, through DiMuro, pursued Lewis for legal malpractice.
Firestone’s ex-wife had used Fairfax attorney David L. Duff for the divorce. Duff’s total bill: $73,000.
DiMuro noted that three lawyers from Lewis’s firm worked on Firestone’s case, and two lawyers often appeared at meetings or depositions that would normally be handled by one lawyer. In 2003, Lewis was only billing $575 an hour, while two young associates billed at rates closer to $250 an hour.
Lewis said Firestone was a difficult client, presenting numerous problems, and that comparing one side’s legal bills with the other’s is unfair. Firestone had tax problems, problems with his law practice, bookkeeping difficulties, suffered from depression and was intent on revenge against his wife, Lewis said.
But DiMuro said, “This was a garden-variety divorce with a modest estate for this area. No child custody issues. Their incomes were modest.” Besides their house in Fairfax County, the Firestones owned a small office condo and a few other assets. Firestone also had a $1.1 million inheritance from his parents, DiMuro said, which Lewis successfully kept separate from the marital estate.
Lewis said that’s a simplistic analysis. “This case presented so many more issues that were bigger than getting unmarried,” he said. “I had the high maintenance client.” He said Firestone signed a contract acknowledging that multiple lawyers might work on his case and that he had 30 days to challenge a bill, which he never did.
One of Firestone’s quirks was his heated denial that his wife had cancer, Lewis claimed. Lewis said he never really pursued the issue, and the case ended in July 2004. But several years later, in a casual conversation with Duff, he learned that Beverly Firestone had died of cancer not long after the divorce.
“My head exploded,” Lewis said. “I was sickened by that. I was horrified to think the case accelerated that. Nothing is more stressful than a divorce case. Stress kills.”
So, he sued Steve Firestone in October 2009.
Firestone said he never told Lewis his wife didn’t have cancer. “I told him I wondered if it was a ploy to increase my alimony exposure,” Firestone said.
In pretrial discovery, DiMuro obtained billing records for all of Lewis’s cases, not just the Firestone case. He found examples of days where Lewis billed for 39 hours; 31 hours; 40 hours; 71 hours.
Lewis said that was the result of “block billing,” in which he entered the time for many days all at once.
In a 16-month period in 2003 and 2004, DiMuro calculated in court records, Lewis billed his clients for 3,620 hours, or an average of 226 hours per month, or 7.4 hours per day, 365 days per year.
Lewis said he worked nights and weekends, in addition to his bar duties and television hosting.
As the suit progressed in Fairfax Circuit Court, Lewis’s lawyers angered Fairfax judges by failing to respond to basic requests and orders. The judges started slapping Lewis’s lawyers with financial sanctions. First $2,000. Then another $2,000. Then $5,000, $7,500 and finally a $10,515 hit after Lewis failed to appear for his deposition last month.
Lewis said his lawyer, Michael P. Freije, had released him from appearing, although he had been subpoenaed. Freije told Judge David S. Schell there had been a misunderstanding, but Schell was clearly upset and ordered Lewis to appear in DiMuro’s office the following week as well as pay the highly unusual fifth court-imposed sanction.
Lewis said he couldn’t be there, because of family obligations. Rather than defy the court, he said, he agreed to pay Firestone and settled the case.
MANAGING CLIENT EXPECTATIONS
October 18, 2010 § 4 Comments
One of the challenges of being a Chancery practitioner is keeping your clients’ expectations realistic. And I’m not talking only about expections regarding outcome. I’m talking expectations about you, your firm, the court and the legal process itself.
The Pincus Family Law firm in Columbia, South Carolina has a page on its web site that may just be a home run in addressing client expectations. You may find something useful here. I’ve copied and pasted the text for you:
CLIENT EXPECTATIONS (REALISTIC OR UNREALISTIC)
ABOUT US:
We do not work on the weekends and do not provide emergency numbers for the weekends. There are times we may look at and answer your email over the weekend, but this is generally the exception and not to be relied upon by you that we are accessible on weekends.
Do not think we are perfect. We make mistakes. We are competent attorneys and paralegals, but we make mistakes. We will correct a mistake if we find it or if you point it out. Please do not yell at us, accuse us of not doing our job, or insult us over a mistake.
We will return phone calls in the order they are received and based on the priority of the situation. If you leave a message, your message will be passed on to the attorney. Calling three or four or multiple times in a day will not get your call answered any faster. Email is the quickest way to get a response from an attorney.
Attorneys work by appointments only. Please do not show up at our offices to speak with an attorney without an appointment.
Please utilize our paralegals to answer your questions and give you status reports. Our paralegals are very experienced and can, most of the time, respond to your request. We bill our paralegal time at less than 50% than what the attorneys charge so take advantage of their experience and knowledge.
ABOUT OTHERS:
You may not get any consideration from your spouse for anything you have done or will do because you are nice. You are encouraged to be nice, be cooperative, but don’t expect to get anything favorable in return for it.
Most of the research you do about your case online or the advice you get from friends will be incorrect or not applicable to your case so you should not compare what is happening on your case to what you find online or what friends or family may tell you. As your attorneys, we are the only reliable source of information regarding the process and status of your case.
The opposing attorney may be very aggravating and frustrating to you because he or she may accuse you of things you have not done, may be litigious (wanting to fight about everything), may drag his or her feet with moving the case forward, or may be non-responsive to requests from this office. It is unrealistic to expect that we can control how an opposing attorney handles his or her file or practices law.
The legal pleadings (Complaint, Answer, Counterclaim, etc.) are legal documents filled with allegations that must be pled (and some that are merely made to posture for a client). Do not expend any emotional energy (get angry or upset) on the text of legal pleadings drafted on your behalf or your spouse’s behalf. It is not worth it.
We cannot control the court’s schedule or docket. The courts schedule cases as they are processed and in line with the thousands of other cases filed. You will not be happy with the time it takes your case to get through the system. There are thousands of family law cases filed in Lexington and Richland counties each year and most contested cases take several months, sometimes more than one year, to finish.
What you can expect during a Trial (Contested Case)
COURT APPEARANCES—Bonnie and Monet generally work files together although one attorney may be your “lead” attorney. Therefore, at court appearances, it may be necessary for one to cover a court appearance for the other. We will try to give you advance notice if your “lead” attorney will not be attending a court appearance, but sometimes the scheduling decision is made at the last minute.
SUBPOENAS—the other party can send a subpoena to any third party that MAY have information about you, your spouse, your business dealings, your employment, your education, your children and the like. Banks, lenders, business partners, educational facilities, stock brokers, teachers, churches, etc. can all be issued subpoenas for any records they may have regarding you. We can do the same. There is very little we can do to stop this so be prepared to deal with the frustration you may experience. If there is a legitimate reason to try and stop the subpoena, which there rarely is, we can file a motion to do so. Unless the information is privileged in some fashion, the third party will have to disclose the information requested.
DEPOSITIONS—the other party can issue a notice of deposition to any third party witness. This means that a third party can be required to give testimony under oath usually in one of our offices. The purpose of depositions is to find out information and to find out ahead of time what a person may testify to in court. You and your spouse could each be deposed for the same reason. We can issue notices of depositions as well. A fact witness is entitled to a fee of $25 to appear and professionals (doctors, psychiatrists, etc) are entitled to have their time paid for to appear (by the party that deposes them). A court reporter must be present and is paid to attend as well. The attorneys are paid to attend as well. Depositions are costly.
NOTHING HAPPENS QUICKLY—generally, contested cases take several months to move through the court system. A complicated custody or equitable division case can take one, sometimes two, years to complete. The courts are always full and there are several steps that have to be taken before a trial will be set, for instance, mediation, a guardian ad litem investigation, discovery, depositions, pre-trial hearings and motion hearings. It takes a long time to move a contested case through the court system and this will likely be your number one frustration. We will do all we can to move the case forward, but you will still be frustrated with the time it takes to finish a case. Please prepare yourself ahead of time and please do not take this frustration out on us or my staff. We are doing everything we can to move the case along.
DISCOVERY—this is the “formal” name for exchanging information through subpoenas, written questions (interrogatories) and request for documents. Discovery has its own set of rules and deadlines which we will inform you about during the process.
CHILDREN—Marital problems are terribly difficult for children. Do your children a favor and do not “poison” the minds of your children against their other parent. Do not speak about their parent’s faults to children. Do not complain to your children about how much child support you are paying or how little child support you are receiving. Visitation with parents is NOT a bargaining chip or game. Each parent is entitled to visitation privileges with their children. Children are not your property. They are not your pawns. They are absolutely not your messenger. They are innocent individual human beings that need both of their parents, not just the “best” parent.
ADULTERY—Do not become romantically involved with someone other than your spouse if you are still legally married (even if you are separated)! During marital litigation you should behave as though a detective and camera crew were following you and recording you and your conversations at all times.
CHILD CUSTODY CASES—You should behave as though a detective and camera crew were following you and recording you and your conversations at all times. Do not do anything that you would not perfectly happy with a Family Court Judge seeing, hearing or finding out about when the Judge is deciding your custody case.
ATTORNEY’S FEES—in a child custody case, you could spend the price of a car in attorney’s fees. Most contested custody cases run upwards of 10-20 thousand in fees paid out over the course of the case. This usually includes attorney’s fees, guardian fees, psychological fees and expert witness fees. In a complicated equitable division case, the cost can be significant and sometimes more than a custody case depending on how much property there is to value and the difficulty of valuing assets. Even a very small business can run $2,500-$5,000 to value if there is a dispute as to the value. A small equitable division case (which means there is a home, retirement, credit card debt, and other property or debts to divide) can run $5,000-6,000 in attorney’s fees over the life of the case. The most expensive part of the case is going to be trial preparation and attendance costs. That is why a trial retainer (an “up front” payment) is required in all contested cases. You will see this in your fee agreement and we reiterate here that a trial retainer is required for continued representation.
Thanks to the LegalEthicsForum.com for this.
FIVE SIMPLE STEPS TO PROVE ATTORNEY’S FEES
October 13, 2010 § 7 Comments
You would think that the award of an attorney’s fee would get special attention from both the client and the attorney. After all, the client is looking for some help with the financial burden, and the lawyer representing him is looking for some assurance that she will be paid. And one of the best ways to impress your client favorably is to hang your fees on the opposing party.
In many cases, though, I find that the lawyer takes a sort of slap-dash approach. Sometimes the lawyer confers with the other side and reaches a low-ball stipulation about a reasonable fee. Or the lawyer takes the witness stand (one of the very few occasions when an advocate is allowed to testify per Rule 3.7 of the Rules of Professional Conduct) and offers some general testimony in vague terms about a ballpark figure. Or the lawyer simply asks his client what she paid him and apparently thinks that will suffice.
Proving a reasonable attorney’s fee is actually a fairly simple process, but you need to cover all the points to make your client’s claim airtight. Before we talk about what you need to prove at trial, though, be sure you’ve done what you need to do before trial to lay a foundation for your claim:
- Record your time as you move toward trial, and have your time record printed neatly. You will need it for your testimony in court.
- Be sure there is a prayer for a reasonable attorney’s fee in your pleading. You are asking the court to take your opponent’s money, and that requires due process.
Now that the preliminaries are in order, here are the five steps to prove attorney’s fees:
- Be sure to have your client testify about his or her ability to pay. In divorce cases, ability to pay is the most critical consideration, and if you do not establish your client’s inability to pay, she will not be eligible for an award of an attorney’s fee. Deen v. Deen, 856 So.2d 736, 739 (Miss. App. 2003); Bates v. Bates, 755 So.2d 478, 482 (Miss. App. 1998). Even in a contempt case, where inability to pay is not required, you are wise to offer testimony about the financial effect of the contempt and the resulting attorney’s fees on your client, since an award of an attorney’s fee is not mandatory in contempt. Suess v. Suess, 718 So.2d 1126, 1129 (Miss. App. 1998). Remember that the ethical rules do not allow you as an advocate to testify about the contested merits of the case. If you are going to prove your client’s inability to pay, you will need your client’s testimony.
- Testify yourself about the prevailing rate charged by attorneys in the district. The award must be reasonable, and one of the key touchstones for reasonability is the usual and customary rate charged by attorneys in the district. But the prevailing rate is not binding on the court. The judge may award a fee at a greater or lesser rate if the circumstances warrant it. If you charged a rate different from the prevailing rate in the district, what rate did you charge and why? And if your rate exceeded the prevailing rate, what is your justification for doing so? Make your record.
- Put into evidence an itemization of the time you devoted to the case. Here’s where that itemized statement comes in. Identify it and ask that it be admitted into evidence. Before you do, though ask yourself: Is it credible? Does it look like a genuine fee statement that one would tender to a client for payment, or does it look like something you scratched together 5 minutes before setting foot in the courtroom? Are the times reported credible? Does it reflect charges for “one competent lawyer,” or are there charges included for others? Before you ever get to trial, pore over your statement and subject it to your own cross examination.
- Be sure to capture all the time in the case. Ask the court to take judicial notice of the time spent to that point in the trial, and estimate for the record how much more time will be needed to complete the trial. Estimate also the total number of hours that will be needed for any post-trial matters, such as drafting a judgment or preparing proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.
- Address each and every one of the McKee factors. You can read more about the McKee factors here. The McKee factors govern the amount of the award, but as a practical matter, if you don’t prove them there is nothing in the record to determine what is reasonable, which means that a reward of zero is most likely. No matter how badly you and your client want that attorney’s fee award, if you don’t include proof of the McKee factors, you likely won’t get it.
BETTER CHANCERY PRACTICE FAQ
October 8, 2010 § 2 Comments
My 8.05 financial statements stink. How can I improve them?
Here are Ten Tips for More Effective Rule 8.05 Financial Statements.
Is my estate ready to close?
Check out this Checklist for Closing an Estate.
I think I need to file a habeas action. Any tips?
This Habeas Corpus Step by Step should help.
One more time: what are those child custody factors I need to prove at an upcoming trial?
The Albright factors are what you’re looking for.
Help! We need to sell some real property in an estate, and I don’t know where to start?
How to Sell Real Property in an Estate may be just what you need.
I’ve been asked to handle a minor’s settlement for a Jackson firm, and I’ve never done it before. What do I need to do?
This Outline for Handling a Minor’s Settlement will get you started.
My mail has an MRCP 41(d) notice in it this morning. I remember you said something about it, but I don’t have time to look for it. Can you remind me what I am supposed to do?
<Sigh> Here’s a post on what to do When Rule 41(d) Comes Knocking at Your Door.
I need to prove the tax effects of alimony, but my client can’t afford to hire a CPA to come testify. Any ideas on what I should do?
Try looking at Proving Tax Effects of Alimony.
My Chancery Judge is really nitpicky. How can I draft my adoption Complaint to satisfy him?
Are you talking about me? Whatever. Here is a post on pleading Jurisdiction for Adoption.
Every time I go to court in Jackson, the lawyers there snicker about my countryfied attire. Any suggestions? I cannot afford another $100 contempt citation for punching out a lawyer in the courtroom.
You probably need to be charging more so that you can afford either a better wardrobe or more contempt fines. Until you do, try reading “High Waters” and Burlap Suits. It won’t change anything, but it may help you to feel better.
IS THIS THE SOLUTION TO PRO SE LITIGATION?
August 25, 2010 § 7 Comments
A post about proposed changes to the pro bono rules for lawyers is here. There is a thoughtful comment to that post that highlights some dimensions of the situation.
It’s no secret that pro se litigants are appearing more and more frequently in Chancery Court. Whenever I ask a self-represented litigant why he or she did not hire an attorney, cost is always the response.
In our district, it’s not uncommon for a simple, irreconcilable differences (ID) divorce to cost upward of $1,500 to $2,500, plus court costs, although I have heard of some lawyers charging as little as $250 plus costs for an ID divorce with no children.
Self-representation, however, is not limited to routine, uncomplicated matters like ID divorces involving no children, no property, no joint debts and no other problems. I see pro se litigants in all kinds of matters. I presided over a termination of parental rights case not too long ago where the father represented himself and lost. I have seen pro se litigants in an adverse possession case, contempts, paternity, and even in a partition suit where, believe it or not, both sides were pro se. I can say unequivocally that I have never seen a party who proceeded pro se in a contested case leave the courtroom in better shape legally or equitably than he or she was when they walked in.
Although most all say that they choose to proceed pro se due to the rising cost of legal fees, I find in the course of things that others simply underestimate the complexity of the issues involved and think that legal matters are little more than filling out a few sheets of paper and filing with the court. Still others are lured by the siren-song of the internet sites that push cheap fill-in-the-blank do-it-yourself legal proceedings. The common denominator among all of these is that they are looking for a cheap, one-size-fits-all, easy solution to what may be a complicated situation.
These are the people who wind up in court pro se. In many cases, those pro se parties are getting simple ID divorces using kits they purchased on-line. Some are getting pleadings prepared by “secretarial services,” in violation of state law prohibiting practice of law without a license. The simple cases with no children do not usually give rise to later litigation. Pro se litigants with children, however, are a recurring problem.
Problems with child support provisions, joint and sole custody provisions, division of property, and allocation of debts are all common problems in these do-it-yourself cases. I have one pair of parties in Clarke County that I have sent back to the drawing board four times, and, although they are my most extreme case, they are by no means the only case that I have had to treat that way. I have just about decided that, if there are children, I will require the parties either to have an attorney or I will appoint a guardian ad litem at their expense.
The self-represented parties seldom understand why they can’t simply have their papers signed, and they are invariably frustrated when I tell them that I can not advise them how to draft an acceptable child support provision, or why that waiver filed a week before the complaint won’t cut it, or why they need a property settlement agreement when they don’t have any property.
How do we make legal services more affordable, thus reducing the pool of pro se litigants? Some claim that “limited scope representation,” also known as “unbundling” is the answer to lower legal fees. In essence, it is a representation arrangement in which the respnsibility of the lawyer is limited and the fee is resultingly lower. The attorney may, for instance, agree only to advise one of the parties about the language of the property settlement and child support agreement, or simply to prepare pleadings. The clients buy only as much legal service as they feel they need.
The Supreme Court’s Commission on Access to Justice proposed an amendment to Rule 1.2 of the Rules of Professional Conduct to allow for limited-scope representation. They met on Monday, August 23, and since the comment period has expired, I assume they will pass the rule on to the Supreme Court for adoption. I am all for it.
Although the proposed rule approves and encourages the practice, it does not address how a representation agreement would read so as to cover all of the ethical concerns that might arise. There is information available online, however, that may provide a starting point for lawyers. The LAWYERS USA website offers some information. The ABA has some info. The Civil Justice Network also has some info. A paper presenting the pros and cons of the practice is here.
Whether limited scope representation is the answer to the growing numbers of pro se litigants, I have no way of knowing. I do believe that it has the potential to help dramatically because it will decrease the amount of time judges will need to devote to scrutinizing pro se litigants’ pleadings and paperwork.
One caveat: I will not approve a limited-scope representation arrangement in any probate matter. Rule 6.1 of the Uniform Chancery Court Rules requires that every fiduciary retain an attorney, and you will be expected to continue in your role as counsel once you are in until you find substitute counsel. I will not allow the operation of the new rule (if it is enacted) to create an end-run around Rule 6.1.
An approach to the pro se phenomenon that I can not endorse is continued encouragement of laypeople to tackle more of their own legal matters. I saw a bar-produced video of smiling legal professionals encouraging people to handle their own “routine” legal matters, and making it sound as easy as folding a paper airplane. I don’t understand this approach. The American Medical Association does not promote do-it-yourself tonsillectomies, but then medical ethics includes the fundamental proscription, “Do no harm.” To me, the solution is not to encourage people to do their own legal surgery. The answer is to make it more likely that they will have a competent surgeon.
I am not a fan of pro se litigation. Even seemingly simple, routine matters may have serious implications for the parties, and I assure you that they have absolutely no clue about those ramifications. Self-represented litigants seldom have a grasp of the ramifications and complexities of equitable distribution, the various forms of child custody, or joint debt, to name but a few of the many legal snares that await the unwary. Also, the parties are under no duty to be honest and forthright with the court, leaving open the very real possibility of fraud or worse. Without legal advice and the check that an ethical attorney provides, the parties’ paperwork can create more problems than it solves, and even in the absence of lawyers it is clearly not the duty of the judge to advise them about the possible mess they may be creating. Yet, every day, inexorably, we see more and more self-represented litigants.
I am a firm believer in access to justice, but in our commendable haste to discover a way to do that, let us not lose sight of what it is we are trying to achieve: access to justice. Not access to disaster. Limited scope representation may be a good first step toward alleviating this problem.
DUTIES OF THE ATTORNEY IN PROBATE MATTERS
August 9, 2010 § 2 Comments
Not too long ago, during a proceeding involving a minor’s settlement, the following exchange took place between a veteran lawyer (who practices primarily in Circuit Court) and me:
Judge: Your claim for attorney’s fees has to be supported as set out in Rule 6.11.
Lawyer: I am sorry, your honor, I was not aware of your local rules.
Judge: That is not a local rule; it is the Uniform Chancery Court Rule.
Lawyer: When were uniform chancery rules adopted?
If ignorance is bliss, that is one happy lawyer.
Sometimes I feel that even lawyers who are fully aware of the Uniform Chancery Court Rules (UCCR) have no idea what they include because they do not bother to read them. Take the requirements for lawyers in probate matters. From time to time, I have to remind lawyers of their duties, and when I do it often happens that they are surprised to learn of it. Could it be that lawyers nowadays are just too busy to familiarize themselves with the law? Now that’s a scary thought.
My best advice is to get out your rule book and read UCCR 6.01 – 6.17 right now.
Okay, I know you’re too busy to do it right now, so here is an overview:
- Rule 6.01 requires that every fiduciary must have an attorney unless the fiduciary is licensed to practice law. The attorney’s compensation will be fixed by the Chancellor, and the attorney may not withdraw unless permitted to do so by the Chancellor. As a practical matter, you will not be allowed to withdraw unless and until an attorney takes your place, so you need to think twice before entering an appearance in a probate matter.
- Rule 6.02 expressly states that “Every fiduciary and his attorney must be diligent in the performance of his duties. They must see to it that …” publication to creditors is promptly made, inventories and accounts are timely filed and presented, all other statutory requirements are timely and properly met, and that ” … estates of decedents are completed and assets distributed as speedily as may be reasonably possible.” In plain English, that means that the lawyer is every bit as responsible to the court as is the fiduciary. Your professional standing, reputation with the court, and even your license in some cases, are on the line. It also means that estates are not to be kept open for years while the attorney deals with other matters.
- Rule 6.02 also provides as to guardianships and conservatorships that the attorney shall report promptly to the court a guardian’s or conservator’s failure to perform his or her duties, and if the lawyer fails to do so, the lawyer may be held in contempt.
- Rule 6.03 requires that every accounting must include a statement of all assets of the estate. For money, bonds or securities, a computer printout is not adequate; the accounting must include a sworn certificate by an officer of the bank that the funds are actually on deposit in the amount claimed.
- Rule 6.04 is perhaps the most overlooked of all, but it is perhaps also the most crucial. It requires that every disbursement be accompanied by a voucher in the form required by §91-7-279 and 93-13-71, MCA. It is not enough to recite in the accounting, for example, that “The guardian spent $50 on clothes for the ward as authorized by the court in the last accounting.” The accounting must include vouchers documenting the expenditure. In reporting the expenditures, Rule 6.05 mandates that where the expenditures are spelled out in the accounting, the voucher number, date of the disbursement, name of the payee, purpose of the expenditure, and date of any court order authorizing the payment must be stated.
- Rule 6.06 spells out how to deal with lost vouchers.
- Rule 6.07 states that claims arising after death of the decedent such as for funeral bills, monuments and attorney’s fees, must be approved by the court before payment.
- Any request for funds for support of a ward must include the present amount of the estate, the amount of the ward’s income, and the amount of any previous allowance, according to Rule 6.08. Any request to expend funds for necessities that are the responsibility of the parent will not be approved unless the guardian justifies the request under oath.
- Rule 6.10 deals with settlement of wrongful death or injury claims. An outline for handling minor’s settlements is here.
- Rule 6.11 sets out the required information to support a claim of the fiduciary for a commission or extraordinary compensation, which includes the total amount of the estate handled, the total amount disbursed, the balance on hand, the nature and extent of services rendered, the expenses incurred by the fiduciary, and the total amount of any amount previously allowed. The rule also states that neither fees for fiduciaries nor for attorneys shall be based on the value of any real property.
- Rule 6.12 governs petitions for attorney’s fees. The attorney must support the request with the same information required of a fiduciary as in Rule 6.11, and an itemized statement of services rendered. There are separate requirements for recovering damages for wrognful death or personal injury, and where a contingent fee contract has been approved.
- Rule 6.13 requires that the fiduciary swear to and sign every pleading, accounting and report. It is not adequate, as sometimes happens, that the attorney sign the documents.
- Rule 6.14 provides that a copy of the will must be attached to the petition to open the estate. Recently a lawyer (from out of town) argued with the clerk that the rule means that only a copy needs to be submitted, and that he should retain the original. That is not the meaning of the rule, and it is not the law. § 91-7-31, MCA, requires that the original will, when admitted to probate, shall be recorded and retained by the clerk. The rule merely requires that a copy of it be attached to the petition for ready reference by the court and other interested parties, and so that the original can be secured.
- Finally rule 6.17 bears stating verbatim: “If, without cause, an attorney fails to file accountings or other matters in probate cases (estates, guardianships and conservatorships) after being so directed in writing by the Court, the Court may consider such misconduct contempt.” Misconduct; such a meaningful, menacing word fraught with professional peril.
Practice Tip: Quit relying on forms to do everything and start reading the rules. I repeat: Start Reading The Rules. You stake your career on your performance; start staking your performance on knowledge of what you are doing. You have a professional duty to your client to know the law, to inform, advise and guide your client, and to keep your client as well as yourself in compliance. As the attorney in a probate matter the rules make it clear that you will be held every bit as responsible as the fiduciary when things go wrong. The fiduciary, however, seldom has a law license and career on the line like you do.
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