Question:
What are the chances I could win fighting a lawyer in small claims court?
?
2013-06-16 15:00:17 UTC
I paid a lawyer 550.00 over a year ago on my daughters behalf to write up an agreement so that the father of her kids had supervised visitation because he would not return the kids when they went to visit..We had to call police out 2 times to make him let them go with us cause my daughter has full custody...Our lawyer was suppose to request a supervised visitation and he took our money but never preformed his duties,,He is ignoring phone calls from us, but he has our 550 dollars, because he is a lawyer is there a good chance I will lose no matter what???
Six answers:
KalidoreWestheimer
2013-06-16 17:49:08 UTC
One of the really good things about small claims court is that it is not bogged down with legal arguments by the parties. Unlike typical civil cases, in small claims each party simply presents their version of the facts, and ONLY the facts. It doesn't require any knowledge of the law or even really benefit from it.



That being said, if the lawyer is a litigator then he's going to be used to presenting facts in court. If you're not well spoken, this might be to your disadvantage. On the other hand, many small claims court judges in this situation will tend to favor the non-lawyer because they don't want the lawyer bowling the non-lawyer over.



What you may want to do instead is contact the state Bar and discuss filing a fee dispute with them. Most Bars take accusations of charging clients without performing the work very seriously. Like small claims, they will look only at the facts & not allow parties to make arguments of law. Unlike small claims, they will take into consideration whether or not the lawyer violated any ethical or procedural requirements (e.g., some state Bars require ALL attorney fee agreements to be in writing. Failure to do so means they'll side with the client almost 100% of the time. But a small claims court will only apply standard contract law to the situation, which means a verbal contract is entirely enforceable.)
?
2013-06-16 23:10:30 UTC
If you keep your wits about you, yeah, you got a winnable case for at least a portion of your money back, and if you go for -that- portion only, then you might get lucky for 'punitive damages' as well. But it hinges on your ability to appear 150 percent the most ideal perfection of the Great God "Reasonable", calm, cool, collected, considerate, compassionate, coherent, cooperative, and just a small tiny bitty pinch of confrontational salt called "righteously indignant" but avoiding the Nancy Grace vulgar peasant extremes of theatrical drama, "The courtroom is a place to act like adults, it is not a school yard."



The technical argument is simple Law of Mathematics; You gave 550 for 12 quarts of milk to be delivered, but they only delivered 2 half pints, so there's still 11 -quarts- of milk that you paid for and never received. Or a bucket of hot wings but only the little containers of dipping sauce were delivered, empty. Or a Carpet Shampooer, but they only sent the power cord. Or any other examples you can think of where you pay for "a whole" and the most important portion never got delivered; You understand and appreciate that "a workman is worthy their hire", so you you don't care about the Delivery person's wage, and even the tip is excusable - But the Owner and Underwriters of the Shop itself still owe for the goods they got paid for but failed to supply, provide and deliver.



oh. and if some variant of the tired old saw peeps in about "that wasn't my understanding", that's fine, contract law number one demands "meeting of the minds", "mis-understanding" -annuls- a contract "ab ovum" -before- "consideration" is acceptable. So in the case of "misunderstanding" or "not what -I- heard", or "don't recall mention" and so on, the 550 -never- should have been accepted in the first place since "no meeting of the minds" ever existed.
?
2013-06-16 23:55:20 UTC
US lawyers in all states are licensed by the 'State Bar'. The lawyers have to pay them substantial dues every year and the State Bar polices them and makes sure they are doing their duties usually very closely. They have big complaint departments waiting for your call.

You make a complaint about a lawyer, they investigate, do everything for you for free, make a ruling and will get your money back, plus maybe a fine or demerit on the lawyers official record. You can usually check you lawyers record so far on your states State Bar website.

Lawyers hate 'Bar Complaints' it's like getting audited by the IRS....Usually just the notice of a Complaint will get a lawyer hopping to do whatever he can to fix it or pass out refunds.... to avoid the investigation.

So...you should make a State Bar complaint.
2013-06-17 03:18:50 UTC
If you have a string case, you can still challenge a lawyer. It is also a good idea to avail the free consultation provided by law firms to evaluate the pros and cons of the incident from a legal point of view.
2013-06-17 06:09:49 UTC
Definitely NOT. You have to understand that laws ( for lawyers ), were made by Lawyers. Therefore the plebs who have money to waste and do not understand the justice system, will get sympathy, but not much more.

Lucy Lockett.
?
2013-06-16 22:07:57 UTC
Unfortunately for you, the hassle, time and likely hood that you will lose the battle make suing someone for $550 absolutely not worth the time. I've known people who have won even larger settlements and been unable to collect the money, I suggest you don't waste your time with the legal battle. Try to get to the lawyer another way perhaps. Be persistent, good luck :)



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