A recent Texas Lawyer story by Angela Morris, “Dallas Area Lawyer Accused of Fabricating Client Invoices,” reports that an allegation that he fabricated the legal work entries on a client’s invoices has landed a Dallas-area attorney in hot water with the State Bar of Texas.
James Mosser, who works at Mosser Law in Plano, is facing a lawsuit by the Commission for Lawyer Discipline, which claims he violated attorney discipline rules with the billing fiasco.
Mosser denied the allegations and vowed to fight the lawsuit.
“I don’t fabricate work entries and the lawyer who represents the proponent of that is a disgruntled lawyer who used to work in my office and got mad and quit,” said Mosser. “The proponent of this is her aunt who she was doing work for, and didn’t properly obtain a contract.”
Mosser was licensed in 1994 after he received his law degree from Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in 1993. His Texas Bar profile shows no public disciplinary history. And his law firm profile said that he practices trial and appellate litigation in the business and commercial arena and banking and financial industry, real estate law, class action defense and more.
The lawyer-client billing dispute arose after a client in 2019 hired another attorney who worked at Mosser’s law firm. That lawyer recovered just under $15,000 in a probate matter. The client agreed that $10,000 would go into the firm’s trust account to pay the attorney fees and to hire another lawyer in Tennessee for another part of the case, according to the petition in Commission for Lawyer Discipline v. Mosser, filed in Collin County District Court.
The Mosser firm attorney who worked for the client had agreed to reduce her hourly rate to $175, the petition said. But the client got an invoice for nearly $2,600 and said it didn’t show the proper reduced rate. Mosser never responded to the client’s billing complaint, said the petition. Mosser did pay $1,500 to the Tennessee lawyer to complete the client’s probate matter.
The allegation of fabricated invoices arose later.
The attorney who had worked with the client left the Mosser firm in September 2019. Soon after, the client wanted her funds back from the firm’s trust account. Mosser did not send the client the balance, alleged the petition. Instead, Mosser sent a new bill for $7,200 that had new entries, the pleading claimed.
“These entries were fabricated by respondent,” alleged the petition. The client only got $230 as a refund.
The lawyer discipline commission claimed in the litigation that Mosser broke attorney discipline rules that say an attorney is not allowed to charge an illegal or unconscionable fee, require a lawyer to return money that a client is entitled to receive, and require a lawyer to refund unearned fees after the end of representation. The petition also claimed Mosser broke a rule that prohibits an attorney from engaging in dishonest, fraudulent, deceitful or misrepresentative conduct.
Claire Reynolds, spokeswoman of the Texas Bar’s Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, which represents the lawyer discipline commission, declined to comment.