What do you do if your attorney disappears?

[cspa522]

We paid our attorney fees up front, as was required by us, and are now 22 months into a 60 month BK. Our attorney has seemingly disappeared. Her phone is disconnected, and she hasn't returned an email from me, or a phone call, since November of 2013. I reported this to my trustee's office, but they told me there's nothing they can really do at the moment. I can get another attorney, but I'm assuming that means I have to pay for it a second time.

Advice? I need an answer from her on a BK related issue, and also...she's my freaking attorney. I paid for her services and I expect her to update her contact information and respond in a somewhat timely manner. I have checked PACER as well as Google-searched her, and checked her standing on the state bar website. She's listed as active and in good standing. My husband drove by her office, but it was after hours, so no way to tell if she's really there (though her signage is still on the door, but it's a group office, so no way to tell from peering through the lobby door if she's really still there or not).

Thanks!

[dmc-2008]

Is there anyone in the group office that can answer your question and help you figure out what is going on? I would go during work hours!

[justbroke]

Post confirmation, an attorney only monitors your case. In a Chapter 13 case, you have technically only paid for the attorney services to get you to confirmation. Typically, a Chapter 13 plan may have some of the earned but unpaid fees in the plan as well as some token "monitoring" fee (I have seen $50/month). This is probably the reason that your Trustee's office shrugged their shoulders.

If she is an attorney that is a staff attorney of a larger firm, contact the firm directly and ask to speak to the Partner that she reports to. If the attorney has a paralegal, contact that paralegal directly as well.

If you have a specific question that isn't too complex, I'm sure someone on here, including some of the attorneys that frequent this site, may provide you with some information that may help you in the interim.

[cspa522]

According to our paperwork the fees we paid our attorney include any litigation that needs to take place during the entire 60 months. The reason I'm asking, and I've posted this in a different thread, is that we were recently sent the title of a car that was included in the BK. The car died and we had to replace it, but we still have it and want it off our property. The company who held the lien sent us a lien release notice, so now we want to get it out of our garage. We can sell it for parts, we know this for sure. We don't even care about keeping the money, we just want to get it gone! In November I sent her an email with a copy of the lien release. She responded immediately and said "I've never seen this happen, let me contact their attorney and I'll get back to you." And that was the last I've heard of her.

Her phone is disconnected, and she's not responding to emails via any of the addresses I have for her (she has two). I don't want to sell the car for fear it will mess up something with our BK. Can't violate it when we're so close to being finished!!

She is a stand-alone attorney, no partners. The other office spaces are rented to others not connected to her, and isn't close to my office. I'll have to make arrangements to make a special trip over there if I go during business hours. Mostly I'm just (perhaps naively) appalled that she hasn't responded to me in four months, and has seemingly disappeared!

[tobee43]

first call the local bar assoc., and then call the state bar. find out if she moved, retired, or was disbarred...they should and will know if she is still active and where. then i would file a complaint, they should be able to find her and do something for you.

[Pandora]

Post confirmation, an attorney only monitors your case. In a Chapter 13 case, you have technically only paid for the attorney services to get you to confirmation. Typically, a Chapter 13 plan may have some of the earned but unpaid fees in the plan as well as some token "monitoring" fee (I have seen $50/month). This is probably the reason that your Trustee's office shrugged their shoulders.

JB - is that just in FL where you are as to attorneys / Ch. 13?

My Ch. 13 includes, according to my paperwork / contract I signed, my attorney / his office staff for the entire plan (which for us, is 5 years). If there are any concerns or areas that we're having issues with, such as last week when I had to call regarding our mortgage (outside the plan, but now giving us issue and playing "BK Lawyer" themselves.. long story), they are there to do what needs to be done. They may charge additional fees for doing so as per our contract, but regardless they are required to be there until our plan is completed. Luckily we've not had to contact our attorney's office in the past 3 years (we're getting ready to enter into our final year) - so they did our mortgage letter for free this go-round Our next step is our car being paid off next month and praying the CU releases the title (also outside the plan)....asked attorney what happens if they dont, cross collateralization, etc - and he said to let him know once we pay it off and how the CU deals with it. If they refuse to send title or envoke CC clause (which would be a violation due to it being secured but 2nd being unsecured, so CC clause is void and null at that point), then he'd step in and get things going. Fingers crossed it all works out the way we believe it should!

I'm wondering if this is a YMMV situation that varies district to district / state to state?

[justbroke]

Typically the monitoring fee, covered in the "no-look" fee, includes general calls from the debtor. In a 60 month case, at $50/month, that's $3,000 so it is certainly not an insignificant amount of money.

Yes, they are required to be there, and that's the monitoring fee for them to stay engaged with the client. I was eluding to "special" issues such as Motions and non-standard items not covered by the standard no-look fee.

I would think that an attorney would still answer his/her client's phone calls and e-mail messages throughout the course, just for good customer service.

I don't know of any attorney that would sign an open-ended fee agreement where they would litigate any issue over the life of a typical (60-month) Chapter 13 plan. Maybe a smaller practice can do that. I have just not read about any until now. A review of the fee agreement would be the next thing to make sure it actually includes post-confirmation "litigation". If it does include such, then, as tobee wrote, contact the bar association and try to find out where this attorney is currently practicing.

There could be may reasons that one could no longer contact their attorney including, but not limited to, left the practice or law and in more cases than you may realize, death.

[Pandora]

Thanks JB - I believe ours is as you stated essentially...and anything additional is billed as needed.

I'd like to think if a lawyer died (hopefully thats not the case for the OP), that someone would notify his/her clients in that instance. Seems like that would be the appropriate thing to do...or is it just my way of thinking?

[tobee43]

Op in indicating that their contract states "According to our paperwork the fees we paid our attorney include any litigation that needs to take place during the entire 60 months." maybe unusual, if that was the terms of their contract, that atty is in breach. personally, and although we didn't go through a 13, i never heard of such a type of agreement. however, we don't know how much cspa522 paid the atty? maybe there was an additional retainer for any upcoming litigation?

if it's in the contract the atty should honor it. pandora your way of thinking is everyone is good and kind and everyone is honest and kind. if the world was full of YOU's ( can you even say that word, the world wouldn't be in the mess it's in) LOL!! i know most have great intentions, but with the bk boom also along with that boom ,came many attys riding the waves that had little to no bk experience, just to catch that money train.

[cspa522]

You guys are making me laugh. We paid $3000 up front, for pretty much what Pandora stated. However, this is absolutely in line with our contract. It's not outside-the-box litigation, and even if it was I'd think she'd want to work with me to get more money out of me! She's done everything for us up until now regarding this stupid car (which, at this point, I wish would just rot in Hades), but it's been pulling teeth to get a response from her at ANY point. This four month long silence, however, is the worst of it. I just don't get it. I did manage to find her cell phone number, and left a message on that last week, but haven't received a call back.

[justbroke]

The attorney is your attorney unless and until they die or withdraw as your attorney. You have paid to have them ready to answer your questions and to handle certain issues during the life of your Chapter 13 plan. That's what they are there for.

As Pandora wrote, they can sometimes get a little testy, as they really don't want to do any additional work, unless it is easy. In most cases, Chapter 13s have absolutely no issues. There is the occasional motor vehicle title issues, but those are as simple as sending a letter -- in most cases. There really is no reason for a Chapter 13 attorney to ignore their client.

I hope you are able to reach out to this attorney. You may want to document all your attempts to reach the attorney, and then seek help from the Trustee armed with that documentation.

[cspa522]

Well, here we are, seven months since I've been trying to get a hold of our attorney, with zero communication from her. I hope to God she got our tax returns filed correctly. We haven't heard from her since November. I've called and emailed her weekly, with no luck. I've filed a complaint with the trustee's office.

All I want to know is now that we have the title to our stupid car, it's LIEN-FREE, if we can sell it so we can stop paying for the storage parking spot we're spending $75 a month on.

I'm afraid to do anything without her saying it's okay, but I really want to be RID of this car.

[justbroke]

Your car is now clear and free of any lien. However, you must obtain permission from the Trustee and obtain an order from the court in order to sell that type of property (a home or car). If your attorney is missing, try physically going to their office. If they are not there, you should really reach back out to the Trustee since most plans continue to pay an attorney a monitoring fee (of about $50/month)! If that's the case, it could get tricky to disgorge the attorney from the "unearned" yet paid fees.

It's a little tricky, but unless the attorney has died, you should not need to suffer.