I fired my attorney, what now?

S

sve

Registered Users (C)
Hi guys,

I desperately need your advise!
I hired an attorney to prepare my EB1-OR petition at the begining of February, who claims to be the best immigration attorney in the South. The discussed legal fees were $3000-4000 (no more) for filing I140. No lawyer-client contract was signed. At the same first meeting I left all supporting documents useful for my case (more then 300 pages, almost everything possible). I paid $1000 advance fee.
My attorney had 1.5 month to prepare the first draft of the petition (I was out of the country). On my return, I immediately contacted him by E-mail about the status of my case and had no reply for several days. I finally received the answer: "working furiuously on your case". 3 days later I finally received the draft. 9.5 pages. 2.5 of them is my essay about the field of science, that I was already billed for (approx. $200). 1 pages does not completely apply for my case (about teaching experience: my position is pure research), as well as criteria about judging work of others (I do not have anything strong). 2 criteria with strong provided documentations were completely missing. The rest of the draft was only usual centences, with big empty spaces supposed to be filled by me. The draft was taken from another petition and the attorney even did not bother himself to change "he" to "she", or "philosophy" to my field everywhere). There were actually nothing specific and useful for my case there. I could not use that draft in any case! I fired him immediately because of his low-quality work. He pretended to return all my documents to me, but all my publications (~150 pages, grant contracts, CV of my referee) have never been returned.
Now i received the final bill. He estimated his work for 13 hours and charged me for $3100 without any explanation of the charges - simply "unbilled from April 4"!

My question is: what rights do I have? What should I do? I know about filing a complain with the bar, but is it sufficient and effective? Should I do anything prior to filing? Also, what should I do with his bill? Will not paying it be dangerous for my credit history?

Sorry for long posting. I appreciate any suggestions.
 
You'd better take care of it. It might reflect in your credit history if the lawyer pass this bill to collecting agency. Of course, you can dispute it but it takes time to take it our from your credit report. Filing complaint to the bar might cause the lawyer to withdraw this charge.
 
:) Dear sve:

I can understand your situation and I completely agree of your anger toward the attorney. But I may suggest you continue to hire him rather than dsicontinue your contract. I paid my attorney $4,000 dollars and all I got is a 7 or 9 pages of cover letter filling with quotes from the letters (I wrote all the letters myself). But I still think it is worthwhile because the case was approved! You may think they did nothing but they have their effects at the end.

In my experience, you pay $ 1,500 before hand and another $2,500 after the approval. So, if you already paid $1,000, why don't just continue the contract and pay the rest (less than the bill he mails you) after the approval. Anyway, you are the one cares. He would not care as much as you wish. No attorney would. So why bother to find another one? They are all the same.

I hope my suggestion would be helpful to you.
 
Originally posted by sve
No lawyer-client contract was signed.
Click to expand...

HUGE mistake.

It is not unusual for lawyers to bill for their time up to the time they are fired. My own attorney charged me a flat rate but our contract specified a price of $400/hour for services already rendered if I were to terminate our agreement.

Your ex-attorney sounds like a hack. The low price should have been a hint.

Brian
 
So, do you think I could not do anything against him?
Do they even take some responsibility for their work and have some honesty? Or we are powerless against them and no rules are applicable in their world? Whatever they say is the true?

I feel myself robbed and I want at least to try to find some justice. I do not expect anything. I may not win anything but why do not spoil his customer satisfaction rating at least by filing a complain? Or make him worring a little and make him answering to the bar?

It appears that he is not good. He just lost one EB1-OR case including an appeal. He showed me the case (even he is not supposed to do so) and after reading this forum I can see that all BCIS ojections were wright. The case had enought preliminary evidences to be approved but the petition was badly prepared.
 
If you decide to fight on, remember to call credit report center to dispute that charge if the lawyer send it to collecting agency. The credit report center will take it out for investigation for 45 days. It is likely that it might be put back after investigation. Prepare the document to show the dispute to the credit report center. Be presistent, the credit report center may eventually delete it. I had one similar charge and eventually being deleted from my credit history.

Failed to do so might affect your AOS or CP stage. There was a guy. His GC was rejected during his CP interview since the Consular look at his credit history and falsely believe that there was a credit fraud in that guy's credit history.

Good luck.
 
Originally posted by sve
So, do you think I could not do anything against him?
Do they even take some responsibility for their work and have some honesty? Or we are powerless against them and no rules are applicable in their world? Whatever they say is the true?
Click to expand...

Lawyers don't have the best reputation. Sometimes they deserve it, sometimes they don't. Ever seen the movie Philadelphia and the joke about lawyers?

You should probably at least contest the fact that he worked 13 hours on your case. He did do *some* work, and you owe him for that. I would also report him to the State Bar. This is usually a waste of time but you never know.

Brian
 
There are two issues here. First, how do you rescue your petition. Second, how do you deal with your attorney. Let prudence prevails on both issues.

I used an attorney, but I prepared the petition letter and collected all the evidences by myself. I realised later that my attorney does not have experience with EB1-EA. I was very pleased that I ended up preparing the petition by myself. I knew my field, qualifications, attributes and experiences better than the attorney. In the process of undertaking the research for the petition, I became more familiar with the requirements for EB1-EA.

My experience suggests that we are individually better off researching and preparing, at least, the initial draft of the petition, which an attorney could build on. Thus, you should try to take the draft petition that you have and strengthen it learning from forum such as this, AAO decisions, and if possible buy one of the self-petitioning kits.

On the second issue, the decision will finally be yours. I stayed with the firm despite the inexperience of my attorney. I felt that the attorney may be able to deal with legal and procedural issues that I am not be aware of and that may arise. He initially quoted hourly rate, but I ended up negotiating lower flat rate. He will get his balance once the case is successfull.
 
I totally understand the feeling!

For me, my company insisted that they found a local attorney. I do not have right to find one attorney I trust. We are a small company. This attorney may take care other kinds of legal things also. This could be one of reason that my boss wanted to use him. I do not want to be odd at my boss regarding the attorney selection. Also, company agreed to paid the first five thous. dollars toward the final immigration fee.

Then I started my painful process. I met my attorney last May about his intention to file the NIW for me. My boss paid $3500 first. I am the first NIWer of my attorney. I have to collect all ref. letter templates and write all drafts by myself. Totally I wrote about 10 letters. Then I sent them to my attorney for his editing because I think he should edit them so that he can have an overall picture, as well as arrangement, of all supporting material.
He agreed to do this for me also. But my attorney hold all letters for four months and then, after I showed my extreme dissatisfacation, he started to edit all letters in about one week, and then got all of them back to me.

I then sent these letters to my referers. It took me another half a year to collect all of them -- simply because I donot know most of these people. They are cautious, they are busy, and so on.

Then, finally, my attorny took another couple of months for the preparation of my case before it was eventully sent out.

Oh, man!!!! Only the preparation took me one year!!! Each time I pushed him, his repled would be "sorry, I am busy with other deadline filing.....'. I was thinking, "is not my case also a deadline case???". But I was not odd at him, I tried to show my respect to him. I know the filing itself means nothing to him,but a milestone to me.....


The totally legal fee is around $6500 (filing fee not included). This included all (I140 NIW, and I485 for me and my wife, and EAD, AP for my wife, and so on). The fee reflects the discount of the totally charge which is based on the all time he spent, e.g., 10 mintues for writting an email, 1 hr. for editing the letter, 12 minutes for phone talk, and so on.

So, my point is we really do not have much control about the attorney, we have to rely their personalities, and working style. We have to move them that we really need help from them, and we are willing to pay what we should. I know it is hard, but it could be the best way to figure it out..... Forgive me if you donot agree on this.

Although my attorney is new to NIW petition, i feel he is very sersious of all writting work including letters, and petition letter. He is very careful about all documents we submitted. One of reason that he takes much time to do this is that, probably, he is not so experienced. I think he also gained because my document could be the templates for his NIW customers later on. Maybe his working style is simple attorney working style.

Hope my experience can calm you a little down. But do not feel bad, be confident...
 
Thank you everybody for your support and advise!

First, I do not need to calm down, thanks. I am calm. It is already one month since I started to prepare the petition by myself, according to some research from the web, this forum, which is very helpful, BCIS decisions, etc. I just do not want to feel myself as a stupid sheep, do not want to pay my ex-attorney money for nothing. I want to do something. Maybe my experience will also be useful for somebody else. I hope also that my attorney will not behave the same with next naive victim in his hands.


I hired him by the principle "all animals are equal". And if he claims to be the best immigration attorney in the South, has highest consumer satisfactions rating, I can reach him by a car, why not? But obviously, some are not so equal...
Believe me, what I obtained as a first draft (after 6 weeks of waiting) is for nothing. It does not have anything from my case except of my name and my essay about my field of science. Anything else is either not applicable to my case, or just common sentences, taken as a rough draft (with big empty spaces).
Of course, in his final letter he accuses me in many things. Mostly he says that I did not write him an explanation why I am outstanding, saying that seemingly I wanted him to write it, which is absurd. I asked him several times before what I need to prepare but had no answer. That request just came with the draft. I did not respond to it simply because I was not sure if I need to continue with him. And what would be my bill now if I would sent it? That is all he can say about the termination of our contract.

So I have decided to fight. We will see what happens. I will file a complain if he does not drop his additional charges against me or anyone here can convince me in opposite.
 
Shame on these lawyers

Shame on these lawyers!

I got the similar problem last year. Two months later after I sent out my draft, I contacted my lwayer. But I found he did nothing at all! Then I spent two days at his office in person just helping his legal assitant sorting out my publications! The lawyer did nothing and his assitant is so stupid. I wasted a lot of time and realized it may take another half a year to complete my application. Then I wised up and changed to EA and self-petition. I finished my petition in one and half month and got approved two months ago.

It has been more than one year after I discarded my lawyer and he never contacted me again. The good thing for me is that my company paid the lawyer, so I did waste my personal money except time.

I totally understant your situation and be careful to keep all your evidences!

Good luck
 
Hi Beiningsteps... Congratulations!

Could you tell us about your background. service center, RD, RFE, AD etc. etc. Thanks.
 
Here is my suggestion. I think one of the responders said something similar:

I would write a letter to the attroney in qustion and explain to him in plain language why you do not think you should pay that bill. Make sure that you write specifics and not general sentences which would apply to a whole bunch of other people. No insults or passionate bravado by the way.

Secondly, and equally importantly, I would strongly imply (not outright threat) that as a last resort you would file a complaint to the relevent body (The Bar ?) the same letter you would send to the attorney. IMPORTANT: you must write the name of the relevant body and the person who would look at those claims (may be you should call that body to make sure you are talking to the right tree and mention the call in the letter, saying carefully that you did not mention the attorney's name but it was a general info call) and their addresss in the letter to the attorney. This way the attorney would understand that you are not bluffing and you do not need to search or wait, but you have the letter (the same letter that the attorney just received) and the address and the person who would receive the letter. You have everything. You can just mail it. Once your attorney realizes this he/she will be serious about it and will not brush your letter aside. I congragulate your will to do your part to make this world more just and equitable. Good Luck. Luck is from God!
 
Thank you very much everybody for your support and suggestions! They mean a lot for me!

As you suggested I prepared very detailed 3 pages explanation letter to my attorney (I spend whole day yesterday!). I explained what I expected from him, why I was so dissatisfied with his services and fired him, what misconducts of professional rules has he done (with references to the Rules of Professional Conduct). Everything was supported by strong evidences. I also gave him 3 days to drop financial charges against me. Otherwise, I am ready to file a complaint with the Bar, I want to protect my rights.

I e-mailed that letter, and in just 30 minutes after that I received his respond. For the very first time his e-mail was polite. Hi drops all charges against me. And I can finally concentrate to the preparation of my petition and not wasting my time!

So, if you think you are right, fight for your rights!

My advise: Do not hire an attorney without recommendations from people you know. Do not rely to other figures like the highest customer satisfaction rating or if he/she is listed in the "Best lawyers of America".

Thanks again and I would be very glad to help anybody in the similar situation.
 
To SVE:

Congratulations!

By the way, if you can write such a compelling letter to persude your former lawyer to drop the charge. With the same writing skills (plain english with detail explanation), I think you can file a self-petition for your case. Your chance of success is pretty high. Good luck.
 
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