breech of contract?

What is the name of your state?
Pennsylvania

I am not certain if this is the proper place for this question, if not, someone please inform me of the proper area.

My brother's wife has a pending court appearance on a statutory matter, I believe it involves an alleged traffic violation. She arranged with a lawyer that had done bankruptcy work for her in the past to represent her in exchange for some menial labor, specifically cleaning apartments that he (her lawyer) was remodelling. No written agreement was ever made, but there is at least one witness to the verbal agreement.

At a later point, the same lawyer hired my brother and myself to do contrat labor in the remodleing, which we began to provide (this was in exchange for actual pay). After about two months, the lawyer decided to terminate our employment, and as a side effect, he also decided my brother's wife could no longer work in echange for his services. During this period, she had been performing up to and possibly beyond the terms of her agreement to work for him. He is now asking to be paid for his legal services rather than accepting her labor in exchange. So far, she has signed no agreements to pay, and she has an impending court appearance.

We do not know at this time what the lawyer plans to do, but we assume he will expect her to sign a payment agreement before he will appear in court on her behalf. I have advise my brother to tell his wife not to sign such an agreement.

My question is this: If someone agrees to accept labor in exchange for a service, and the person provides said labor as agreed until the service provider changes his mind about accepting labor, does this not constitute a breech of contract?
The person agreeing to provide the labor did indeed provide said labor up until the point where the provider altered the agreement. The provider seemed pleased with the labor provided until a dispute arose between other, unrelated parties with an unrelated contract over an unrelated issue.

If the lawyer refuses to represent her, and she is fined over the traffic violation, would the lawyer be able to be held accountable for the costs?

Also, does the person providing the work deserve anything in exchange for the work already provided?

If anyone can give me some sound advice about this matter, I would greatly appreciate it, and may have further questions involving other possible violations of contracts by this same lawyer.

Feel free to email me at [email protected] if you have reliable advice.

How much (in dollars) was the lawyer's bill?

How much (in dollars) was the woman paid?

If he doesn't agree to abide by the agreement and finish the case (the traffic case at least), suggest to him that the PA Bar might be very interested in his "methods". Looking at his side, maybe the work being done was far less in value than the legal services he was providing. It takes a lot of hammering and cleaning to pay off $200/hour.