Filing a complaint with the bar

[almostsm]

What is the name of your state? Missouri

What are the repercussions to the lawyer whom the formal complaint with the bar is being filed against? Are lawyers afraid of having formal complaints against them? How does this affect their record? Will the public know about the complaint?

I'm just wondering because we haven't threatened the lawyer with filing a complaint yet. Do lawyers care whether or not someone is or will be filing a complaint against them? We've tried and tried to contact this lawyer but he's never available and rarely answers our telephone calls. He's told us on 4 different occasions over the past 8 months that he'll "get something done in a few days," but hasn't followed through with that promise yet. Will it even help to threaten him with filing a complaint?

Our problem is that we don't have any more money, nor can we get the $1500-$2500 it'll cost to retain another lawyer. Time is of the essence, and we contacted him with plenty of time to do something, but here we are at last and nothing has been done yet. We can't even talk to another lawyer without this one signing off, and we wouldn't be able to do that even if we wanted to because he's refusing to talk to us.

[Bretagne]

If you file a complaint with the bar, the bar will notify the attorney. He will take your complaint seriously, as long as the Supreme Court doesn't just find no merit in your complaint upon receipt, which happens frequently.

Info about filing a complaint: [url]http://www.mobar.org/bd4c1005-0724-4429-9bfb-5c7cd4ac6ff8.aspx[/url]

More info about the process: [url]http://www.mochiefcounsel.org/howto.htm[/url]

The form to fill out to file a complaint: [url]http://www.mochiefcounsel.org/ocdc_form.pdf[/url]

[almostsm]

With what I said in the original post, will the Supreme Court probably find merit in the complaint upon receipt?

I have times documented as to when the lawyer was contacted over the past 8-10 months (we originally spoke with him 10 months ago,) as well as every email in between there. It would be one thing if he just told us he needed more money prior to proceeding (I would be fine with that,) but he just kept telling us he'd do something, yet never did. We even requested that he at least communicate with us, and he rarely did.

I called his office on Friday and, without threatening filing the complaint, asked the receptionist why the lawyer isn’t returning our phone calls, why he hasn’t done anything on the case yet, and why he says he’s going to do something and never does (the receptionist often tells me he will talk to the lawyer for us.) The receptionist said, “I don’t know,” to all 3 of those questions. I then asked him, “How do you propose we resolve this?” And he again said he didn’t know- I got the impression he was going to tell me only the lawyer can answer that. So I beat him to the punch and said, “That’s right, the lawyer has to be the one to resolve this. But how is that gonna happen if he doesn’t return our calls?” I proceeded to tell the receptionist that if we lived in town we’d be making their office a living hell because we’d be over there every day pestering him about the case. I then told him at 2:00 PM that we are on our way out the door to pick up the children who live in Missouri (CO states Mom and Dad are supposed to meet, but Mom is refusing, which is why we're trying to get into court about this, and she's putting us in the position to either go pick the kids up or just not get a visitation.) I told him we’re going right down there to pick them up, and then we’re turning right around to come back home, and we won’t be home ‘til probably 5 AM the next day. I said this is why we need to go to court; to make her stop doing this. I (once again) left our cellular telephone number with the office. I told him to inform the lawyer that he (the lawyer) can either pick the time when he’s going to talk to Dad, or we can pick the time for him when we call him on his cellular telephone. I told him not to worry about how late the call is because we’ll be up all night.

I understand that some may feel I have no place in this, but it is my name the checks that this lawyer cashes, and he has talked to me in the past about this as if it were no problem. Dad also calls to talk to the lawyer; however, Dad works during regular business hours, and I do not, so I am home to make more calls than Dad does (the office has spoken with BOTH me and Dad on this, so it's not like they're being a$$es because it's ME who's calling.)

[Shay-Pari'e]

Why on earth are you being so rude to a receptionist? A little info will go along way here, without having to look up your old posts.