My lawyer has been suspended

What is the name of your state? Arkansas

I am not sure how much information is needed, or what is important. I will try to keep this as short and to the point as possible, if there is more that you need to know, please let me know and I'll add more details.

My ex and I have a split custody situation; he has half of our children and I have half. In June, 2004 my ex took the children in his custody out of State during my scheduled visitation. I immediately went to my lawyer.

My lawyer, after being paid in full, sat on the case and avoided contact with me for more than two months, he also lied to me initially about when he had filed on my case. I later found out that nothing had been filed until October of 2004, and what he had filed was not what we had discussed. When confronted with it, he asked for the chance to make it right. I allowed him the opportunity because I needed the work done more than I needed revenge. We agreed to allow him to do some other work for me as a way to make up for his mistakes.

Through delays my ex has managed to keep this out of court from October until this month, although I still have no idea when the actual court date is.

I found out yesterday that my lawyer has been suspended for three months and I am feeling somewhat panicked. I obviously need a new lawyer, but I'm having a difficult time getting someone to take it so fast, and I'm having a difficult time coming up with the money to pay another lawyer so quickly. If my lawyer had done what he was paid to do in the first place this would have been taken care of quite some time ago.

Other than recently my lawyer has had a great reputation, and has been the attorney for our city so I trusted him when he told me he would take care of everything.

Is there any way he could be made responsible for paying for my new representation, if I can even find someone? If not, how likely is it to believe that another lawyer might accept payment under these circumstances? Also, how can I find out when I'm scheduled to be in court?

I really don't want to sue him, I just want to know what to expect and what his responsibilities towards me are. I'm not even worried about what he promised to do to make this situation right, my only concern at the moment is in getting through this hearing.

I would appreciate any recommendations you can offer.

I really hope someone can offer some information. I called the clerk this morning and found out my court date is January 20th. Is that going to be enough time for an attorney to get up to speed, if I can even find someone to do it?

MyUserName said:

I really hope someone can offer some information. I called the clerk this morning and found out my court date is January 20th. Is that going to be enough time for an attorney to get up to speed, if I can even find someone to do it?

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**A: if not, your NEW attorney could go to court and ask for a continuance.

Thank you for answering HomeGuru, I appreciate it.

I think I found one, and I'm going to talk with him next Thursday.

How can I avoid a situation like I went through with the last one? How can a person know if a lawyer is as good as the reputation he/she has? I'm a little bit worried because the lawyer I had was considered a very good lawyer until this all happened.

"I'm a little bit worried because the lawyer I had was considered a very good lawyer until this all happened."

No, he wasn't, I can guarantee it. His mishandling of your lawsuit shows it; you weren't the first one he screwed over.

A lot of state bars run a website that has disciplined lawyers on it. In any event, the disciplining of a lawyer should be public info.

Get two or three names of lawyers and ask nicely of your state bar if they have been suspended, disciplined, whatever.

Ask around. There are plenty of divorces in your area so someone you know has been divorced. See how other folks liked their lawyers.

But, you have to remember that after a lawsuit such as yours, everyone usually hates the judge, the other lawyer, the ex-spouse, the ex-spouse, the bailiff, the courthouse janitor, and the meter maid.

Bad lawyer cannot be responsible for your future bills, but he should certainly pay you some or all of your fee back (if he did nothing to earn it).

Thank you for answering seniorjudge, I appreciate it.

Part of the reason I fell for it for so long was because everything he told me sounded right. At one point there were some jurisdictional issues and he used that excuse for a long time, although that was decided fairly quickly. Later when I called up there to find out if there was a court date the secretary told me that she didn't have access to my file any longer, he was keeping it in the back, so any information would have to come from him. I had pieced the truth together because what she was telling me by looking at my file wasn't the same as what he was telling me, so he took my file in order to keep my view of the circumstances on track with what he wanted me to believe. When he did that though, he made it sound like he was doing that as a service to me. He wasn't going to make me go through a third person for information any longer, he was going to report to me directly.

I'm worried because the things that are crooked are easily hidden from people who do not know better. I know that I don't know better so I might not necessarily know when things aren't going according to plan, unless I stumble on the truth the way that I did with the last one. I don't want to go into the relationship with my new lawyer not giving him the trust/credit he deserves because you guys cannot all be crooks, and what happened isn't his fault, but I REALLY don't want to go through this ever again. How can I learn to tell the difference between the truth and a believable lie from my attorney? I would like to educate myself on these matters so I know when things are not right, but I don't know where to start.

I don't understand this, and maybe you can explain it to me in a way that an ordinary person can understand: You guys want the money up front, and the explanation has always been that in family law things don't always go the way we feel they should and a client that is unhappy might not make paying a priority. I do understand that, and I understand that a good lawyer deserves every cent of what they are paid. When you guys walk away from a case though, we have no recourse at all. Just as you want to know that payment will be received, we want to know that we will get what we paid to get. I don't get paid before I do the work, I'm only paid for a job once it is finished, and since I'm paid hourly they have to pay my hourly rate or else fire me, I have recourse if the people who employ me decide to withhold funds. When it comes to legal matters it appears to be somewhat backwards. I do understand that not many people are going to walk away from a family law matter feeling 100% satisfied with the results, but on the flip side, when there are really big mistakes made by attorneys there isn't a lot the client can do about it. We cannot withhold funds or nothing will be done, but services can be withheld and we are out quite a bit of money.

If I am commissioned to do something and I do not do it, I would really end up hurting. If a lawyer is commissioned to do something and they do not do it, the person who paid them ends up losing out.

You stated: "But, you have to remember that after a lawsuit such as yours, everyone usually hates the judge, the other lawyer, the ex-spouse, the ex-spouse, the bailiff, the courthouse janitor, and the meter maid."

I'm not really an angry person and I know that I'll come out of there with wounded pride. If the lawyer representing my ex is competent at all (and he is) I will look like a piece of trash after he is finished with me, and if my lawyer is any good (which I hope he is) my ex will have the same courtesy. The judge has to make a decision in a matter of hours and the decision has to be based on the information provided. Somehow courts always get the joy of only getting the absolute worst possible view of the people involved, so I do understand why judges sometimes make decisions that appear off-the-wall. That doesn't really have much to do with my situation at the moment, I just wanted to let you know that we don't all hate you and what you do. Some of us actually understand it.

I wrote out that whole rambling post and I forgot to ask something: What is the difference between the State Bar and The State Bar Association? Which do I use to check on my lawyers reputation?

MyUserName said:

I wrote out that whole rambling post and I forgot to ask something: What is the difference between the State Bar and The State Bar Association? Which do I use to check on my lawyers reputation?

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This is an excellent question and most lawyers do not even know the answer.

I, however, will tell you.

In some states, you have what is called an integrated bar. That means you must belong to the state bar (usually an arm of the supreme court in that state) before you can practice. In Missouri, we have The Missouri Bar. There is no such critter as "The Missouri Bar Association", although when you tell some Missouri lawyers that, they do not believe you.

(Someone, I suppose, could start an organization called "The Missouri Bar Association," but no one would join! Some states--Virginia, I believe--have a state bar and a state bar association.)

Okay, in states where there is NOT an integrated bar, if you want to practice law, you are sworn in by the supreme court of that state. There may be a state bar association but you do not have to belong to it.

Regarding the discussion about whether the "bar" and "bar association" are the same thing or different. In OK, there is just one organization, the Oklahoma Bar Association or OBA. Their website, interestingly, is okbar.org, not oba. http://www.okbar.org/ They are funded by dues lawyers pay. This seems to be the only "authority" in OK to discipline bad lawyers and IMO they don't do a good job of it when they let lawyers off with a private slap on the wrist for things like forgery, which a lawyer I had hired did.

I cannot find a place to check on my new lawyer. The only thing I found on our State Bar website is a license check, it has nothing about disciplinary actions, or pending cases against attorneys in my State.

I found the entire case against my suspended lawyer, but only by googling his full name and looking for it. When I googled the new lawyer's name I found quite a few links, too many to sort through so I don't know where to turn.

I am very upset about the suspended lawyer because I paid him almost all of my savings to do this for me and there isn't really anything I can do about it, that money is just gone forever. It makes it really difficult to actually trust another lawyer. We are the ones who have to take all of the chances because it is so difficult to know what our legal system has worked so hard to keep quiet.

I really wish things like this were made public where I live. It would have been nice to know there was a case pending against him when I started this.