No, this is not a legal question, but we’ve just had an attorney blow us off and I don’t know why.
We’re trying to evict our tenant. I’m not going into those details, suffice to say we’ve done some of the preliminary notification on our own.
Last week we paid an attorney $300 toward a retainer. She said she would write and post a notification giving the tenant 24 hours to move out. If they did we would not go after them for money owed. She posted it on Monday, giving them until 5pm Tuesday to move out.
I stopped by her office on Tue to give her some supporting documents, and asked if I could pay the balance of the retainer, which she would refund to us if we didn’t have to go to trial. She told me to wait and see what happened after the eviction complaint was filed. I asked if she would file the complaint on Wed, and she said she wouldn’t get down to the courthouse until Thurs.
Ivylad has tried to call her Thurs and Fri to tell her the tenant has not moved out, and ask when the eviction notice would be filed. She has since said she would refer us to another attorney, who has yet to call us. Meanwhile, our tenant is still living in the condo rent free, and if she had filed on Wed then by next Tuesday we could have had him evicted. Now I have to pay another attorney another retainer, and the complaint won’t be filed until Monday at the earliest.
I don’t know what happened. We think she misled us in her interest in our case, and we think $300 was an exhorbitant amount to charge for writing and posting a one-page notice. I’m going to send her a letter asking her to refund half of what we paid her. Did we violate some unknown attorney/client etiquette?
Actually, it is. You’re essentially asking about malpractice. You need another attorney to advise you how to (a) continue the legal action against the tenant and (b) go after your former attorney.
Hmmm…I didn’t think it was malpractice. I was just looking for insight from other Dopers P.A. on if I acted inappropriately in any way that would make this attorney go from “Give me $300 and owe me the rest if we have to go to court” to “Another attorney will give you a call.”
Mods, if this is truly a legal matter, go ahead and close. I’m just a bit bewildered at the turnaround.
I’m curious as to whether the lawyer quoted you an hourly rate. $100/hr isn’t uncommon, so if she put in three hours of work that would consume the $300. Ask for a detailed billing summary so you know exactly what you’re being charged for.
$100/hr is pretty low, save for small markets – of which Orlando is not (it depends on how -ish the OP is).
to the OP: look at your retainer agreement, it should set out the scope of your attorney’s representation, fees, costs, billing cycle, etc. Don’t have one? What do you have?
I don’t practice “eviction” law but I can’t imagine it being too lucrative on a one-at-a-time basis, and thus might attract not som competent lawyers – save for the increasingly rare small town jack-of-all-trades. Maybe this is something you ought to learn to do yourself as a landlord – unless the homes are owned by a business entity which cannot proceed pro se. Additionally, seems like 48 hours is quick turn around on an eviction. You’ve got to have notice and a hearing – good old 14th Amendment. Maybe you misunderstood. Again, I don’t do evictions.
I do not believe that the OP is asking for specific legal advice, but for insight into why the lawyer may have acted that way, therefore the thread will remain open.
If y’all feel that she should retain another attorney to deal with the first one, you may certainly make that recommendation. That’s not legal advice, either.
$100/hr is pretty low, save for small markets – of which Orlando is not (it depends on how -ish the OP is).
to the OP: look at your retainer agreement, it should set out the scope of your attorney’s representation, fees, costs, billing cycle, etc. Don’t have one? What do you have?
I don’t practice “eviction” law but I can’t imagine it being too lucrative on a one-at-a-time basis, and thus might attract not som competent lawyers – save for the increasingly rare small town jack-of-all-trades. Maybe this is something you ought to learn to do yourself as a landlord – unless the homes are owned by a business entity which cannot proceed pro se. Additionally, seems like 48 hours is quick turn around on an eviction. You’ve got to have notice and a hearing – good old 14th Amendment. Maybe you misunderstood. Again, I don’t do evictions.
In no way did you act in any inappropriate manner. At most, you may have expected too much.
Sounds like the lawyer really only had the time/inclination to do the notice, maybe thought that was all it would take, maybe then just got busy. Perhaps some piss-poor service. Don’t use the lawyer again. Tell your friends about it. Make sure you only pay for the time spent.
But I’m glad to hear you aren’t seriously pondering a malpractice action given that you would spend 10,000 times as much to prosecute it as your damages (obvious exaggeration).
Oh, no, that’s not worth my time. At most we might file a report with the Florida Bar.
whole bean, as I stated in my OP, we’d done some preliminary notification on our own. We looked up info on the Florida statute, and as required, we gave them seven days to cure the non-compliance, which they did not do. We then gave them seven days’ notice that we were going to begin eviction proceedings. After that we hired the attorney, who wrote the notice and posted it on the last day of the seven days, telling them that if they were out by 5pm the following day we would not ask them to pay money owed to us.
At this point we are ready to file the eviction complaint, which I thought the attorney would handle. They have five days to respond to that. If they do not respond then we get the sheriff to evict them. If they do respond, they have the five days to pay the court all the money due us, which the court will hold pending the outcome of the proceeding.
I will check with Ivylad about a retainer agreement. He met with the attorney, but he didn’t show me any paperwork on any agreement.
Flipshod, you may be right. She did mention that the sense she got was that the tenant could not afford an attorney of their own, and would move out after the notice. She said all we wanted was them out, which is true, so we can get in and clean up and get the place re-rented. I don’t want to go through all this nonsense. But I did get the impression (because she told us the $300 would go toward the $1500 total retainer should we have to go to trial) that she would handle everything for us.
I am trying to be positive, and look on this as a learning experience.
You didn’t violate any etiquette. You simply found a lawyer who is too busy to handle such a small case. Shame on her for not being more responsive.
For the time being, I’d concentrate on getting this tenant out. If they are career free-loaders, they’ll know the plan and will know that they can live rent free until they’ve received the eviction notice. Then they’ll probably skip out before the sheriff arrives to escort them out. If they’re criminal free-loaders, they’ll skip out with everything that isn’t nailed to the wall, including stoves and refrigerators that aren’t theirs. Hope you don’t have one of these.
Once you’ve resolved the free-loaders, then you can concentrate on what to do about attorney a who pocketed $300 for a half hour’s worth of work.
It’s a furnished condo. They do any overt damage or steal anything that belongs not to them but the condo, I’ll file a criminal complaint with the police.
Ideally she should have. Before accepting you as a client there should have been a conflict check done with everyone who works at the firm. If she suddenly discovered a conflict then she should have let you know right away. A conflict of interest doesn’t mean that the lawyer automatically has to withdraw. If the parties in conflict know about it and waive any liability then the lawyer can continue to represent both.
She’s a one-woman operation that shares an office with a title company. I think Flipshod is right…she thought all she’d have to do is post a notice, make a quick $300, and that would be that. Any more she wasn’t willing to do.
I’ll talk to Ivylad. Maybe now that all we have to do is file the eviction notice we can just continue on from here on our own.
The person who works in the courthouse where you file these things may be able to help you fill out the paperwork. You really don’t need a lawyer to file an eviction notice.
(obvious exaggeration).