Firing Your Attorney
It’s never fun to break up, but sometimes it’s the right thing to do. If you’re not getting the service you want from your attorney you should try to have a candid conversation about your expectations and how they might be able to fulfil them. If you can’t talk it out and get on the same page, though, perhaps it’s time to “go in a different direction,” as they say.
If you have to fire your attorney, it really shouldn’t be that hard. Granted, there are different kind of contractual relationships that you might have with an attorney that might lead to a more complicated scenario, but let’s talk about the personal injury scenario exclusively.
You probably have what’s called a contingency fee agreement, which means that your attorney doesn’t earn a fee unless and until they get a recovery for you. So up until then, you don’t owe them a fee. Of course, if they spent a lot of time on your case they might have what’s called a Quantum Meruit claim, but then we’re talking about the hourly efforts they put into your case and depending on the stage at which you fire them, they may not have put in enough hours to make the pursuit of such a claim profitable. So chances are firing your attorney will not have a hugely adverse financial impact on you, though your particular situation may vary.
So how do you go about firing them? Rule 1.16 (a) states that a lawyer shall withdraw (that means they are compelled to do so) when they are “discharged.” My reading of that is that if you tell them, in whatever format you might choose – text, email, phone call, voicemail, snail mail, whatever – that they’re fired, then they’re fired. Period. I recently had a client come to me after discharging her previous attorney and they gave her a whole rigmarole about not being able to fire them without her actually speaking to the attorney to discharge them. I think that’s a violation of the above-stated rule. If the client says you’re fired, you’re fired. Now, if the attorney wants to talk to you about it, then that’s up to the attorney to seek you out and if you agree then you can have that dialog. But I don’t think they can make any sort of requirement on their own. Once you give them notice that you don’t want them on the case anymore, then they can’t be on the case anymore.
One of the things you learn in law school is that the best way to win an argument is to know the rules of the conflict. Here is a great article for lawyers about firing clients and disengagement in general. If you understand the attorneys’ point of view on this, then that will help you get your way all the more easily.
Hopefully you don’t ever have to fire an attorney, but if you do, good luck. And make sure you find an attorney that you can work with ASAP!
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