Affidavit of Merit

[Lauren Gannon]

What is the name of your state? New Jersey. 8 years ago I hired a Lawyer on Contingency Verbal agreement. 7 Months into the lawsuit that he started the Lawyer wanted to sign a contract charging $225.00 an hr. I told him we made an verbal ageement for him to work on contingency and I refused to sign the contract The Lawyer worked on the case for another 4 years. Now 8 years after our verbal agreement & no signed contract he is suing us for 25,000.00. I counterclaimed Pro Se for Breach of Oral Contract , (Legal Malpractice, Breach of Judiciary duty, & Fraud for other reasons). He now sent back interrogatories and request for Affidavit of Merit. Am I being forced to hire another lawyer in order to have a licensed professional write a Affidavit of Merit? Wouldn't this be against my 6th amendment right to go Pro Se? Acording to the Supreme Court it is held in 2001 a Affidavit of Merit is not required for Common Knowledge. Does this apply here? The lawyer has been previously reprimanded by the ethics committee for working without a contract before, does this help our case?
Thanks lg

 

[JETX]

"Am I being forced to hire another lawyer in order to have a licensed professional write a Affidavit of Merit?"
*** No. You can have any legally competent qualified person evaluate your claims and then complete an affidavit as to their being of sufficient merit to justify your legal filing. If that happens to be an attorney who charges you for the service, so be it.

"Wouldn't this be against my 6th amendment right to go Pro Se?"
*** No. This is an attempt for the defendant to protect himself against frivolous and abusive legal process.

"Acording to the Supreme Court it is held in 2001 a Affidavit of Merit is not required for Common Knowledge. Does this apply here?"
*** Based on the information in your post, no. In my opinion and based solely on the information in your post, you are making some pretty 'far reaching' claims as to the legal basis of your claims.

"The lawyer has been previously reprimanded by the ethics committee for working without a contract before, does this help our case?"
*** It might, since I personally find it pretty unbelievable that he would even consider performing ANY legal services without a valid signed contract in place.

 

[Lauren Gannon]

When I hired the lawyer on contingency he was to get 1/3 of $4,000,000.00. I just came across a paper ( out of about 5,000 papers, Not kidding) from our adversaries for Summary Judgement they point out that the Statute of Limitation period for federal & civil rights claims is 2 years. The incident happened on 5-21-92, I hired the lawyer in 12-94 and on 1-6-95 our adversaries were notified of Tort claim Act Notice of Claim, this is 2 years and 8 months from the incident. So if the statue of Limitation is for 2 years, Why did our lawyer take the case, since the claim was filed 8 months past statue of limitation?