A recent Law 360 by Aaron West, “ABA Stresses Client Protections in New Prepaid Fees Guidance,” reports that a committee of the American Bar Association issued new guidance on the ethical obligations surrounding retainers and prepaid attorney fees, offering guardrails to protect clients from paying non-refundable fees for unearned legal work.  The opinion from the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility spells out how lawyers should handle advance non-contingent fees paid by clients for single-issue matters like divorce, defense of criminal charges and certain civil litigation, among others.

"[ABA Rule 1.15] requires that fees paid in advance must be held in a trust account until the services for which the fees will be paid are actually rendered, thereby allocating various risks to lawyer and client," the opinion says, referring to the flat fee rule at issue in the guidance.

According to the ABA's Formal Opinion 505, the problem it seeks to clarify stems from flat fees being classified as retainers, which are often nonrefundable. Attorneys shouldn't consider retainers as a "payment for the performance of services, but rather is compensation for the lawyer's promise of availability," according to the opinion.

"Given the rarity and unusual nature of a general retainer, and the fact that very few clients would actually need or benefit from one, the nature of the fee and lawyer's obligations and client's benefits under such an agreement must be explained clearly and in detail," the opinion states.  When it comes to handling upfront fees, the committee suggested that attorneys use "plain language."

"Instead of 'retainer' say 'advance' and explain that it is a 'deposit for fees,'" the opinion says.  "Explain that the sum deposited will be applied to the balance owed for work on the matter, and how and when this will happen."  The committee also stressed that "an advance fee paid by a client to a lawyer for legal services to be provided in the future cannot be non-refundable."

"Any unearned portion must be returned to the client," the opinion says. "Labeling a fee paid in advance for work to be done in the future as 'earned upon receipt' or 'nonrefundable' does not make it so."  The ethics committee periodically issues opinions to guide lawyers, courts and the public in interpreting and applying ABA model ethics rules to specific issues of legal practice, client-lawyer relationships and judicial behavior.

Although the ABA Model Rules provide guidance that U.S. legal jurisdictions can adopt, many states have their own rules that aren't necessarily in line with the ABA model.  In the case of ABA Rule 1.15, multiple jurisdictions have rules on the books that don't align with the new guidelines.

For instance, California and Oregon have their own model rules that clarify and outline how flat fees paid in advance of legal services should be deposited or labeled.  The ABA in its opinion acknowledges the jurisdictional discrepancy but also says that the approach "departs from the safekeeping policy of the Model Rules" and "creates unnecessary risks for the client."  While it's important to safeguard client payments from being considered non-refundable when an attorney hasn't yet earned them, too broad of an approach also risks preventing states from creating their own legal regulatory rules.

A recent Law.com story by Allison Dunn, “Following $1.94M Judgment, Federal Judge Slashes Plaintiff’s Requested Attorney Fees and Costs by 25%” reports that a federal judge in Maryland adopted a magistrate’s recommendation in full, awarding a plaintiff in a breach-of-contract action $786,565 in fees and costs, approximately 25% less than the requested amount due to apparent duplication of efforts between old and new counsel.

The combined request for $793,614 in attorney fees was made by current and former counsel of Byron W. Martz, who prevailed in a case against Day Development Co. in a dispute involving a consulting services agreement.  Under the agreement, DDC was obligated to pay Martz for securing Frederick, Maryland’s approval to amend a previously approved land development plan. DDC never developed nor sold the land, and it failed to compensate Martz for his services, according to the report and recommendation filed earlier this month by U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew J. Maddox for the District of Maryland.

After a bench trial in 2019, Judge Catherine C. Blake entered a judgment in favor of Martz in the amount of $1.94 million on his claim for unjust enrichment.  At the time the case was filed in Frederick County Circuit Court in September 2015, Martz was represented by veteran Miles & Stockbridge attorneys Thomas E. Lynch III, who has since retired, and John E. McCann Jr., a principal in the firm’s commercial and business litigation practice group.  Additionally, Jeremy S. Scholtes, a mid-level associate with the firm, was assigned to the case.

The firm requested that Martz be granted an award of $394,299.50 in fees for 1,069.6 hours of work performed by the three attorneys in 2015 and 2016, which all contributed to the successful outcome for the plaintiff, the report said.  Specifically, the attorneys requested a total of $164,483 in fees for 445.7 hours of work performed on written discovery and production of documents. The defendants argued that the opposing counsel “spent excessive time drafting, revising, and reviewing answers to interrogatories and documents for production, and conferencing regarding the same,” and that its invoices reflect “over-lawyering and over-staffing by attorneys billing for unnecessary, duplicative work,” though Miles & Stockbridge countered that the defendants failed to identify a specific incident of when this occurred, the report said..

After reviewing Miles & Stockbridge’s invoices, Maddox said that he agreed with the defendants regarding the “excessive amount of time spent by multiple attorneys reviewing documents and revising written discovery responses,” and recommended a 25% reduction from the requested $160,877 to $120,657.75.

“I recognize that the Court’s Guidelines for Attorneys’ Fees permit more than one lawyer to be compensated for attending conferences among counsel ‘where justified for specific purposes[.]‘ One common type of meeting that justifies compensation for every participating attorney is a ‘periodic conference[] of defined duration held for the purpose of work organization, strategy, and delegation of tasks in cases where such conferences are reasonably necessary for the proper management of the litigation.’ For example, one such strategy conference among the three [Miles & Stockbridge] attorneys appears to have occurred on February 18, 2016,” Maddox wrote. ”However, following that date were several conferences and communications among counsel regarding discovery, which punctuate apparently duplicative rounds of written discovery response and document review by multiple attorneys. [Miles & Stockbridge] counsel requests fees for all participants of these frequent conferences.”

In 2016, Martz retained new counsel, Leslie A. Powell, who has 35 years of experience in complex litigation, and Paul D. Flynn, with more than 15 years of experience, both of the Powell Firm in Frederick. Attorneys Carla N. Clarke and Peter E. Ciferri, who had between five and eight years of litigation experience, as well as Clark S. Adams and Heath L. Schneibolk, with less than five years of experience, were also assigned to the case.

Once the Powell Firm took over the case, it had to repeat some work already accomplished by Miles & Stockbridge to become familiar with the case.  However, Maddox said such duplication of effort is not compensable in an award for reasonable attorney fees, citing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit’s 1992 opinion in Goodwin v. Metts. 

In total, the Powell Firm requested a total of $399,314.50 in fees for 1,543.7 hours worked by six attorneys since 2016.  For case development, background investigation and case administration, the firm argued that the fee award should not be reduced for duplicative work because these efforts contributed to counsel’s “success in obtaining summary judgment on liability and then a substantial monetary award at trial,” the report said..

“While I understand plaintiff’s position that these activities did not rely upon work previously done by his prior [Miles & Stockbridge] counsel, at least a significant portion of this work appears to have been also separately performed by [Miles & Stockbridge] counsel, according to their invoices, and is therefore duplicative,” Maddox wrote. “Given the apparent non-compensable duplication of services between Plaintiff’s prior [Miles & Stockbridge] counsel and his Powell Firm counsel shown in Powell Firm time entries attributed to case development, the undersigned recommends that Plaintiff’s fee request for case development be reduced by 25%.  A 25% reduction from $31,459.00 results in a fee award of $23,594.25 attributed to case development by [the] Powell Firm.”

Maddox recommended that the plaintiff be awarded a total of $786,565.13, with $344,070.25 in attorney fees for the service of Miles & Stockbridge counsel, and $391.449.25 in attorney fees for the Powell Firm counsel.  Additionally, $47,267 will go to the services of expert witnesses and $3,678 in other litigation expenses.

A recent Law 360 story by James Boyle, “Philly, Pa. Bar Clarify How Attys Can Handle Advance Fees” reports that Pennsylvania attorneys can deposit advance fees into their operating accounts as long as the client clearly consents, according to a new ethics opinion jointly released by the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia Bar associations.

The PBA's Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee issued the opinion with the Philadelphia Bar's Professional Guidance Committee.  The opinion was issued as a clarification to a PBA ethics opinion from 1995, which said nonrefundable retainers from a new client were permissible, but it must be accompanied by a clear written agreement or deposited into a client escrow account.

According to Sarah Sweeney, co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar's Professional Guidance Committee, attorneys were confused whether there was a difference between a retainer fee that is earned upon receipt and an advance payment for legal services.  The new opinion makes that distinction.

"The [two committees] worked together in an effort to provide some clarity on the proper handling of legal fees paid at the outset of an engagement," Sweeney said in a statement.  "Specifically, the Opinion distinguishes fees that are earned upon receipt from fees that are simply paid in advance, and concludes that the former may be deposited in the attorney's operating account."  In other words, fees that are not earned upon receipt are considered advance fees, which are typically placed into an escrow account and drawn upon by the attorney as they represent the client.

Under the newly issued opinion, if there is an informed, written consent from the client, that fee can be placed into the attorney's operating account.  Fees that are considered earned upon receipt can be deposited into the operating account, as long as the attorneys clearly inform clients of the fee agreements.

"Ethics opinions are one of the most valuable services that we provide as Philadelphia's premier trade association for attorneys," Philadelphia Bar Association Chancellor Wesley R. Payne IV said in a statement.  "We were happy to partner with the Pennsylvania Bar Association in providing valuable clarity for our community on a common practice management issue."

A recent Law 360 article by Joshua Wurtzel, “A Lawyer’s Guide To Collecting Fees From Nonpaying Clients,” reports on collecting unpaid fees.  This article was posted with permission.  The article reads:

You've done the work and sent the bill, but haven't been paid. What do you do?  This is unfortunately a question that lawyers, from solo practitioners to BigLaw partners, confront all too often.  But most lawyers struggle with the answer.  And even worse, many end up doing nothing — leaving significant receivables on the table from clients who have the ability to pay.  Struggle no longer.  Here, I offer some recommendations on how to deal with a nonpaying client. The article focuses on the law on account stated in New York.  These principles and advice are generally applicable in most U.S. jurisdictions, though you should of course consult the specific law in your jurisdiction.

Make Sure Your Retainer Agreement Gives You Adequate Protection

Good collection starts with a good retainer agreement.  There are several important clauses any retainer agreement should have.

Thirty Days to Object

Your retainer agreement should include a clause stating that if a client has an objection to an invoice, the client must make a specific objection in writing within 30 days.  Courts have upheld these types of clauses, and have further held that a client that fails to make a specific, timely objection in accordance with this clause waives objections to the invoice.

Fee Shifting

Many lawyers avoid suing clients for unpaid fees because the time spent doing so can be better spent on other, billable tasks.  But if you include a fee-shifting clause in your retainer agreement, a nonpaying client could end up being responsible for fees you incur in bringing the suit.  Make sure, however, that the fee-shifting clauses run in favor of the client as well if he or she is the prevailing party, or else it will be unenforceable.

Choice of Forum and Acceptance of Service of Process

Your retainer agreement should also include a forum selection clause in the state in which you practice so you don't have to go out of state to sue a nonpaying client.  And it should also include a clause stating that the client agrees to accept service of process by mail or email, in case you have trouble serving the client personally.

Rely on the Retaining Lien and Charging Lien

New York law strongly favors attorneys who are stiffed by their clients.  So there are some tools you can use to try to collect without having to bring a lawsuit.

Retaining Lien

When a client has an outstanding balance with his or her former lawyer, the lawyer can assert a retaining lien over the client's file. This allows the lawyer to refuse to turn over the file to the client or his or her new counsel until the outstanding balance is paid or otherwise secured.  To lift the retaining lien, the former client must either pay the amount owed to the lawyer or post a bond for that amount.

Charging Lien

Under Section 475 of the New York Judiciary Law, "from the commencement of an action," the lawyer who "appears for a party has a lien upon his or her client's cause of action," which attaches to a verdict, settlement, judgment or final order in his or her client's favor.

This section gives the lawyer a lien on the proceeds of the former client's case to the extent of the amount owed to the lawyer, with the result that no proceeds can be distributed to the former client or his or her new counsel until the former lawyer is paid.

In 1995, the New York Court of Appeals in LMWT Realty Corp. v. Davis Agency Inc. held that this lien "does not merely give an attorney an enforceable right against the property of another," but instead "gives the attorney an equitable ownership interest in the client's cause of action."

Sue for Account Stated

If all else fails and you need to sue a nonpaying client, the account stated cause of action will be your best friend.  Indeed, in New York, this cause of action allows a professional services provider to sue a client for nonpayment of an invoice if the client has retained the invoice for at least a few months and has failed to make timely, specific, written objections.  This cause of action thus provides lawyers with a substantial tool to pursue a nonpaying client.

Invoice Requirement

To state a claim for account stated, you must show only that you sent the invoices to the client and the client retained them — usually for at least a few months — without making specific, written objections.  It is thus important to maintain a record of when invoices are sent and to whom — ideally by email to an email address the client gave to receive invoices.

Oral Objections

Generally, a client must make specific, written objections to an invoice; general or oral objections will not be enough to defeat a claim for account stated. Nor will general claims by a client that he or she is dissatisfied with a particular outcome suffice.

Reasonableness of Fees

Many nonpaying clients will defend against a nonpayment suit by claiming that they were overbilled or that the quality of the work was not to their liking.  But if these objections are not made in a timely way, with specificity and in writing, courts generally hold that they are waived.

This is significant for a lawyer pursuing a nonpaying client, as most clients will defend by claiming that there was something wrong with the work done by the lawyer.  And so if an account is stated by virtue of the client's retention of the invoices, the reasonableness of the fees and the quality of the work has no bearing on the merit of the account stated claim.

Underlying Agreement to Pay

While account stated is a powerful cause of action, it works only if there is an underlying agreement to pay for the services rendered.  So a person who randomly sends out invoices without having an underlying agreement with the recipients of the invoices can obviously not rely on account stated.

But if you have a retainer agreement that properly covers the scope of the work you will be doing, you shouldn't have a problem.  Nor is there a requirement that the client has agreed to pay for the specific invoices at issue, as long as the client has agreed to pay for your services generally.

The Dreaded Malpractice Claim

Most nonpaying clients faced with a lawsuit by their former lawyer will assert counterclaims for malpractice — even if the malpractice claim has no merit.  While the lawyer must, of course, still deal with the malpractice claim, courts generally go out of their way to sever a lawyer's account stated claim from a nonpaying client's malpractice counterclaim.  This is especially so if the alleged malpractice relates to different work from what is at issue on the unpaid invoices.

Further, as a strategic matter, unless the malpractice counterclaim has merit, most nonpaying clients will drop it after the lawyer obtains a quick judgment on summary judgment at the outset of the case.

Conclusion

Suing a former client is never pleasant, and is a last resort after the attorney-client relationship has broken down. But using efficient, streamlined ways to collect from nonpaying clients can allow a law firm to provide greater value to the rest of its clients.

Joshua Wurtzel is a partner at Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP in New York.

A recent Law 360 story by Caroline Simson, “Taiwanese Co. Says It Won’t Arbitrate Fisch Sigler Fee Dispute” reports that a Taiwanese manufacturer of smartphone camera lenses is pressing a DC federal court to quash arbitration initiated by intellectual property boutique Fisch Sigler LLP seeking millions in additional fees for its work on a "meandering, inconclusive" and expensive patent lawsuit that settled last year.  Largan Precision Co. Ltd. told the court in the lawsuit filed May 10 that it never gave its informed consent to arbitrate the dispute with Fisch Sigler, which is set to be heard by the DC Bar Attorney/Client Arbitration Board, or the ACAB.

The company noted that while the DC Court of Appeals requires any attorney who is a DC Bar member to submit to arbitration before the ACAB if a client chooses that venue to pursue a fee dispute in matters with some connection to DC, there has never been any such rule for clients.  Largan argued that since it intends to challenge the validity of an arbitration agreement that was "quietly added" to its engagement agreement with the firm near the end of their negotiations, that question should be left to the court.

"[G]overning precedent makes plain that only a court, and not an arbitration panel, can decide the threshold issue of whether a valid agreement to arbitrate exists, unless there is clear and unmistakable evidence that the parties agreed to have that question decided by the arbitrators," the company wrote.  "There is nothing here to suggest that the parties ever discussed, let alone agreed to, the ACAB deciding the specific issue of arbitrability."

Largan alleges in the litigation that the firm has already gotten $4.5 million in "fixed fee" payments.  It's now seeking an additional $5.6 million in success fees — despite the fact that Largan agreed to settle the litigation in Texas due to the outcome of parallel litigation in Taiwan that Fisch Sigler had not worked on, according to the brief.  The underlying dispute for which Largan engaged Fisch Sigler involved another Taiwanese company called Ability Opto-Electronics Technology Co. Ltd., which Largan accused of misappropriating its trade secrets in 2013.

While litigation was ongoing in Taiwan, Largan hired Fisch Sigler to file a patent infringement lawsuit in the U.S. against Ability Opto-Electronics Technology and two other entities in Texas.  Largan alleges that while the lawsuit was ongoing, Fisch Sigler charged a fixed fee despite not doing all the work that was supposed to be included under that fee.  That included depositions and a hearing in mid-2020 that Largan says never took place.

Largan won some $50 million in the Taiwanese litigation in early 2021, and it subsequently approached Fisch Sigler about settling the Texas litigation.  The company claims that the litigation had gone poorly, and that there was no reason to continue with it at that point.  It was then that the firm attempted to collect the success fee "based on the resolution of a litigation in Taiwan in which it had no role — and despite achieving nothing resembling success from the meandering, inconclusive, yet very expensive litigation it had pursued for Largan against [Ability Opto-Electronics Technology] and others in Texas and, later, California," according to the suit.

A recent article by William F. Cobb, “Do We Really Need An Attorney Fee Expert?” discusses the need to hire an attorney fee expert.  This article was posted with permission.  The article...

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