elizabeth99
Member
What is the name of your state? IN
I was on here for the past few years about an auto accident we were involved in. We were stopped waiting to turn when a full-size pick-up truck rear-ended us. The impact threw our van 100 feet and blew the side windows out (no shards inside the van). Only my DH and myself were in the van, we were on our way to pick up our son. Had our children been in there they would have been severely hurt, esp. our youngest. She would have been crunched in her booster seat as our front seats broke back and the driver's seat had jammed the booster seat down...my Daughter's legs would have been mangled...
Anyways, we went to mediation Dec. 9th. We settled. While there our attorney asked to speak to us privately and he proceeds to tell us that he would be willing to take 25%, not 30% since we won't go to trial. This is the 1st time he had mentioned of this. He was considered an acquaintance of my husband and gave us special deals and rates. We thought maybe he would do an hourly type rate since he did not do things properly and let us slide quite often. For example: he tried to help us settle something w/o filing lawsuit. He screwed around long enough that I had to call the court to see if he even filed the inital papers, 2 days before the SOL ran out! Then all through the years of having it filed the other attorney would file stuff and expect us to have answered it only to know our attorney had not done squat with it, etc. There were many times we were in his office (the only way to get to talk to him or find out what was going on) and he said he would do something and send us a copy of a letter or let us know...months would go by with nothing from him and come to find out he didn't do what he said he was going to do.
We did not keep documentation of our attorney's lacks...
We thought we read where the attorney has to inform you of his fees and you have to sign an agreement? Is this true? If not, should we broach this subject with our attorney and suggest we do hourly and he gives us an itemized statement? The only 2 things he did was show up for depos (which the other person, the one who hit us, was not there b/c our attorney did nto feel like he needed to be deposed) and for mitigation. Other than that, I did a lot of the callign to find out what was going on, I was the one who got extra copies of photos, etc. Our attorney may have mailed out 4 letters in the 3 years....
Thanks for the advice...
I was on here for the past few years about an auto accident we were involved in. We were stopped waiting to turn when a full-size pick-up truck rear-ended us. The impact threw our van 100 feet and blew the side windows out (no shards inside the van). Only my DH and myself were in the van, we were on our way to pick up our son. Had our children been in there they would have been severely hurt, esp. our youngest. She would have been crunched in her booster seat as our front seats broke back and the driver's seat had jammed the booster seat down...my Daughter's legs would have been mangled...
Anyways, we went to mediation Dec. 9th. We settled. While there our attorney asked to speak to us privately and he proceeds to tell us that he would be willing to take 25%, not 30% since we won't go to trial. This is the 1st time he had mentioned of this. He was considered an acquaintance of my husband and gave us special deals and rates. We thought maybe he would do an hourly type rate since he did not do things properly and let us slide quite often. For example: he tried to help us settle something w/o filing lawsuit. He screwed around long enough that I had to call the court to see if he even filed the inital papers, 2 days before the SOL ran out! Then all through the years of having it filed the other attorney would file stuff and expect us to have answered it only to know our attorney had not done squat with it, etc. There were many times we were in his office (the only way to get to talk to him or find out what was going on) and he said he would do something and send us a copy of a letter or let us know...months would go by with nothing from him and come to find out he didn't do what he said he was going to do.
We did not keep documentation of our attorney's lacks...
We thought we read where the attorney has to inform you of his fees and you have to sign an agreement? Is this true? If not, should we broach this subject with our attorney and suggest we do hourly and he gives us an itemized statement? The only 2 things he did was show up for depos (which the other person, the one who hit us, was not there b/c our attorney did nto feel like he needed to be deposed) and for mitigation. Other than that, I did a lot of the callign to find out what was going on, I was the one who got extra copies of photos, etc. Our attorney may have mailed out 4 letters in the 3 years....
Thanks for the advice...