How do I sue my attorney

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I’ve been cleaning up my case for a few months.  Primarily mistakes made in my support order that are now, based on lack of response from my attorney, unappealable.  Basically I lose the money in overpaid support back to June of 2012.  Just errors in the daycare numbers used total over $2300.  I haven’t gone further to see what a $900 error in my net income makes, but the big one is the day care number.  Lots of details, but I’ve gone through the numbers and these are just plain mistakes without a good reason.

I also have a settlement that was missed by my attorney.  My ex made an offer to settle and by a certain date.  My attorney missed the date by two days, and my ex balked.  This settlement would then not be reached for another 12 months and $14,000 in legal fees later.  The settlement amount was then $8000 higher than what my ex offered 12 months previous.  Again lots of details, but this is the summarized version.

I have numerous e-mails documenting my attorney flagrantly not answering my questions prodding her to move on the settlement and the support matters.  I also have a few reviews I've found online of very similar behaviors providing very similar results.  So it's unfortunatley not just me.

So if anyone has been though this with success, how do I proceed.  I have a letter drafted, but want to make it as detailed as possible so things don’t go wrong from the start.  I’m dealing with pure facts.       

[scraps66]

I’ve been cleaning up my case for a few months.  Primarily mistakes made in my support order that are now, based on lack of response from my attorney, unappealable.  Basically I lose the money in overpaid support back to June of 2012.  Just errors in the daycare numbers used total over $2300.  I haven’t gone further to see what a $900 error in my net income makes, but the big one is the day care number.  Lots of details, but I’ve gone through the numbers and these are just plain mistakes without a good reason.

I also have a settlement that was missed by my attorney.  My ex made an offer to settle and by a certain date.  My attorney missed the date by two days, and my ex balked.  This settlement would then not be reached for another 12 months and $14,000 in legal fees later.  The settlement amount was then $8000 higher than what my ex offered 12 months previous.  Again lots of details, but this is the summarized version.

I have numerous e-mails documenting my attorney flagrantly not answering my questions prodding her to move on the settlement and the support matters.  I also have a few reviews I've found online of very similar behaviors providing very similar results.  So it's unfortunatley not just me.

So if anyone has been though this with success, how do I proceed.  I have a letter drafted, but want to make it as detailed as possible so things don’t go wrong from the start.  I’m dealing with pure facts.       

[Matt]

I haven't been through this, but at one point I called my state's bar association, and they told me there is a process which might be useful.

The bar association mediates some complaints against attorneys.  Their idea is to keep it from blowing up into an embarrassing court case.  If you have this all well-documented, you might be able to say, "I want all the money - I won't back off on that - but if you'll pay it without a court filing at least you will avoid that embarrassment."

I've heard that some attorneys are afraid of cases which could put their clients' complaints into the public record.  Yours might be willing to pay you in order to avoid that.

[sanemom]

I haven't been through this, but at one point I called my state's bar association, and they told me there is a process which might be useful.

The bar association mediates some complaints against attorneys.  Their idea is to keep it from blowing up into an embarrassing court case.  If you have this all well-documented, you might be able to say, "I want all the money - I won't back off on that - but if you'll pay it without a court filing at least you will avoid that embarrassment."

I've heard that some attorneys are afraid of cases which could put their clients' complaints into the public record.  Yours might be willing to pay you in order to avoid that.

I know that if you file an ethical complaint against an attorney, and the bar finds the complaint to be valid, the ethical breech IS publicized.  I have seen the breeches listed on avvo.com. 

[scraps66]

Thanks.  My L actually does work for avvo.com, responds to queries.  I assume these types of things are settled before going public recognizing the cost to a practice.  I also think some L's do this stuff knowing they can use their insurance and that the price to insurance is less than the profit they can make by making tactical mistakes.

[david]

MY first atty actually did something I specifically told her not to do. She sent me a letter confirming our conversation. I then received a bill for thousands of dollars for the service. I didn't pay and she actually called me threatening to sue me for the money. I reminded her that she sent a letter confirming our conversation and if she did sue me I would be representing myself because I didn't need a lawyer for this. She then tried to negotiate 30 cents on the dollar. I told her I would see her in court or she could send me a letter saying I didn't owe her any money. A week later I received a statement from her office saying I was paid in full.

I would make sure the law was covering your butt first and then proceed with asking for the money back first. Of course, document everything.