Malicious Prosecution and Retaliation

[phantomdriver]

What is the name of your state?Nevada, but I am now living elsewhere.

I am a long, long retired law school graduate, retired from federal service close to 25 years. I was never in private practice and my "law" is on the rusty side. Besides, you know the old axiom,"A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client and a bigger fool for an attorney."

On Nov. 7th 2003, I was in an auto accident where the other party admitted fault. In Jan. 2004 I retained a Las Vegas attorney but had to fire him a month later because none of my 11 phone calls were ever returned. The day before I fired him I let one of his assistants know that I intended to do so if a person handling my case did not call me back within the next 24 hours. The next day, I fired him as promised. He promptly put a lien on any recovery.

I settled the case myself in Nov. 2004 and be took 22% for the lien. As I fired him for misconduct and breach of contract. I filed a fee dispute with the State Bar of Nevada. In his response, he never addressed or denied the fact that he failed to return any of my phone calls, but did state that he was now asking for an additional $1,400 for the time spent writing letters and making phone calls. He actually stated that this new claim was in retaliation for my exercising my right (under the first amendment) to file the fee dispute.

I have researched "Malicious Prosecution and Retaliation" but cannot seem to find case law applicable in my case. I had to postpone the Fee Dispute hearing scheduled for yesterday due to health problems, so I have some time to get help on this matter. It is my position that the fee agreement is a contract whereby I retained the attorney and that as his employer he should have returned my phone calls. In addition, his admitted retaliation for my filing a fee dispute constitutes malicious prosecution. Can anyone help me?

[rmet4nzkx]

Originally Posted by phantomdriver

What is the name of your state?Nevada, but I am now living elsewhere.

I am a long, long retired law school graduate, retired from federal service close to 25 years. I was never in private practice and my "law" is on the rusty side. Besides, you know the old axiom,"A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client and a bigger fool for an attorney."

On Nov. 7th 2003, I was in an auto accident where the other party admitted fault. In Jan. 2004 I retained a Las Vegas attorney but had to fire him a month later because none of my 11 phone calls were ever returned. The day before I fired him I let one of his assistants know that I intended to do so if a person handling my case did not call me back within the next 24 hours. The next day, I fired him as promised. He promptly put a lien on any recovery.

I settled the case myself in Nov. 2004 and be took 22% for the lien. As I fired him for misconduct and breach of contract. I filed a fee dispute with the State Bar of Nevada. In his response, he never addressed or denied the fact that he failed to return any of my phone calls, but did state that he was now asking for an additional $1,400 for the time spent writing letters and making phone calls. He actually stated that this new claim was in retaliation for my exercising my right (under the first amendment) to file the fee dispute.

I have researched "Malicious Prosecution and Retaliation" but cannot seem to find case law applicable in my case. I had to postpone the Fee Dispute hearing scheduled for yesterday due to health problems, so I have some time to get help on this matter. It is my position that the fee agreement is a contract whereby I retained the attorney and that as his employer he should have returned my phone calls. In addition, his admitted retaliation for my filing a fee dispute constitutes malicious prosecution. Can anyone help me?

I am neither an attorney nor familar with NV law, but I am a forensics expert, so research is my speciality. I see you asked this question in Sept and received no answer to it then [url]http://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?p=1106215#post1106215[/url]
I have some questions.
Did you retrieve your files from the first attorney's office, do you have the original billing records from that time?
Do you have a copy of the retainer?
What does it say about termination of their services?
Did you do this in writing? Filed substitution with the court?
You were working with a paralegal, who may do everything short of appearances, supervised by the attorney of record.
How much work did the paralegal do? You may still owe for this work based on your contract.
What did the subsequent law firm do about this situation?
Are any of the charges based on communication between law firms after you fired your 1st attorney?
Were you residing in NV at the time you retained the 1st attorney?
Do you have and written communication where the attorney is admitting retaliation?
Do you have both the code of ethics for the NV Bar and the NV rules of court?
Have you researched the NRS?
22% seems steep for 1 month of work.
When is the continued date for the fee dispute? Are you appearing by telephone?
This may be a contract issue.

Was there any ARBITRATION? If so you may want to look at this section of the NRS [url]http://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-038.html[/url] UNIFORM ARBITRATION ACT

public officials (attorney's)
[url]http://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-281.html[/url]

Here is some case law where NV anti-retaliation statute was found not to apply, but it may give you some references.
Pope v. Motel 6 , 121 Nev. Adv. Op. 31, 114 P.2d 277 (2005 ...
Furthermore, the court held that Nevada’s anti-retaliation statute did not ... and Nevada and Ninth Circuit. 4. case law. The Nevada Revised. Statutes make ...
[url]http://nevadalawjournal.org/pdf/popeVsMotel6.pdf[/url]

and another case [url]http://ethics.nv.gov/OPINIONS%20-%20TEXT/1996/96-39.htm[/url]

opinions from bar assoc/ethics
[url]http://www.nvbar.org/Ethics/Ethics_Opinions.htm[/url]