Confidentiality and Fees

[texaskarrot]

What is the name of your state? Texas

My husband and his brother have been in a legal dispute with a man who leased some of our land to keep his horses on. Basically, he owed back rent and other fees for repairs. This guy and his wife are divorcing. Unbeknownst to us, she decided to call our attorney to dish the dirt on her husband. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, I'm sure she was looking for some kind of revenge on her soon-to-be ex-husband. Anyhow, our attorney billed us for her phone call.

In the meantime, another guy who has been dogging my husband and brother-in-law every chance he gets (because he wants to lease the land) took it upon himself to find out who our attorney was and called him a couple of times to inquire about our case. We had no idea that the guy had stuck his nose in our business until we got another bill for those calls from our attorney. We are unsure if our attorney gave the guy any direct information about the case. This seems highly unethical. What about our privacy and confidentiality? Why would he charge us for incoming phone calls from someone totally unrelated to the dispute? Can any Tom, Dick, or Harry place a call to anybody's attorney and get information at the drop of a hat? Are these charges legal? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Texaskarrot

[las365]

Talk to your attorney.

You are making a lot of assumptions. It is possible that your lawyer gained helpful information by listening to what these people had to say. It is possible he gained nothing of value. It is not typical for an attorney to give information uder circumstances like these; however, there is nothing wrong with his hearing whatever it is they had to say. He was performing a service on your case by taking their calls and it was appropriate, in my opinion, to charge for the calls.

Before you get all worked up and accuse your lawyer of being unethical, ask him about the calls.

[texaskarrot]

LAS365 - Thank you for your advice. We haven't spoken to our attorney but plan to do so soon.

I admit that I could have made assumptions regarding the wife of the other party involved in the case, however when it comes to the nosy "gentleman", I guarantee I have not. This guy has earned his reputation (I've seen firsthand) of being a meddler. However, I don't think anyone would have considered that he would call an attorney out of the blue to inquire about a case that he had no involvment in. He has stated several times to my brother-in-law that he wants to lease that land that is in question and has insinuated to my brother-in-law that he was not doing enough to get the case settled. Funny thing now is that there is not a snowball's chance in hell that he will ever lease any land belonging to our family. That being said, I still don't think it was ethical for the attorney to charge us for his calls. I guess we'll find out just how valuable he was for our case when we speak to our attorney.

Thanks for your advise and the time you took to reply to my post.

Sincerely,
Texaskarrot

[Texas Pooh]

Your attorney's charging for the calls is really not an ethics issue.

An attorney on a hourly basis is being paid for his time. Thus, if a call comes in, and he spends time talking to someone related to your case, the attorney bills. The only thing an attorney has to bill is his time. If he doesn't bill, the attorney is working for free.

I'd bet that the attorney took the calls because he thought there might be some useful information to be gained, not to gossip about your case. Wouldn't you hate it if your attorney passed on a chance to gain some useful information?

If you later find out that the attorney talked about your case to third parties, that's an ethics violation, period, whether or not he billed about it. Just talk to your lawyer about your concerns, and I'm sure you'll feel better about it. If you don't, it's time for another lawyer.

But remember ... you may get charged for the conversation with your lawyer about all these conversations!