Here is a situation that nobody wants to find themselves in. Your lawyer takes your case to trial and at the end, you are ordered by the Court to pay the attorney fees for the opposing side…you don’t have to pay just your own lawyer, but you have to pay the other side’s lawyer, too! If your lawyer doesn’t tell you that this is one of the risks of taking a case all the way to trial in a courtroom, then they have not been completely forthcoming with you. No attorney is allowed to guarantee results…so just because they tell you that you “have a good case” doesn’t mean you will prevail in the end. The outcome will depend on many factors, not the least of which is how competent and prepared your attorney is.
Consider this situation. Mr. Jones retains Attorney Y to represent him in a real estate matter. The facts are relatively complex and it appears that the matter cannot be resolved without a trial. Attorney Y is charging Mr. Jones by the hour to work on the case. Mr. Jones forks over $25-30,000 in fees to his lawyer. The issue ends up at trial and from the outset, Mr. Jones can see that his attorney is not prepared. Because of the lack of preparation and the strength of the opposition’s case in court, Mr. Jones loses. This is bad enough. He has paid out thousands of dollars to his attorney and has lost money in the real estate deal. After the trial is over, the opposing side makes a motion to the court for attorney fees, and the judge orders Mr. Jones to pay the winner’s attorney fees, nearly $50,000.00! Mr. Jones then consults an attorney to sue Attorney Y for legal malpractice, which could be a very tricky business.
This can happen even if you WIN! How? In a recent case, which will be heard by the United States Supreme Court in Fall 2010, the father of a Marine who died in Ira sued the Westboro Baptist Church for emotional distress. Members of this controversial Kansas “church” had picketed the son’s military funeral with antigay messages of hate. The father sued and won a judgment against Westboro Baptist Church for $5 million…good news, right? The church appealed, and the appeals court ordered the father to pay $16,000 in attorney fees to the church, even though the matter is on appeal and has been accepted by the Supreme Court for hearing. Read the whole story here.
Moral of this story? Getting involved in a legal dispute is fraught with all kinds of risk — emotional and monetary. Your lawyer should warn you of all of the pros and cons of proceeding. But, buyer beware, your lawyer is not assuming the risk — you are.
