Lawyer withdraws 6 days before court...What now?

[weplumcrazy]

What is the name of your state?
Texas
Problems with attorney from day 1. Attorney paid for by another interested party so kind of stuck. Attorney did nothing for our defense, did not obtain requested documents re Discovery, had to go to court house and use in-house computers to get any kind of update on case status. Attorney mad because of our "digging". Attorney said at last docket call he had appointment with D.A. to discuss options and negotiate our defense. Attorney never had meetiing, with las minute phone call before court date attorney receives plea offer
from D.A. Not given any opportunity to discuss offer, look at options. Attorney sets next court date for the plea date. We had not even seen exact terms of plea. Wrote letter to express dissatisfaction about how case is being handled. Response from attorney 6 days before final court date is a motion to withdraw form faxed over for our signature
What do we do now? What action in regards to the court is proper? HELP!

 

[garrula lingua]

The atty may have been doing everything s/he could.

There is no necessity for the atty to discuss issues with family members, just the defendant.

See what offer the atty has; it may be the best available.

Be careful about firing the atty at the last minute; the court can refuse to grant a continuance.
If you sign the Motion To Withdraw, the atty will be very happy, as his committment is finished & there will prob be no refund.

Did anyone go to court to listen to the cases and see what others, with seemingly similar cases, were getting as sentences ?

 

[garrula lingua]

OP: is there one defendant or more ?
Are you the defendant ?

Even if the atty is being paid by a 3rd party, he is YOUR atty;

After reading your other post, I would make it clear to atty that you do not understand all your options and you want atty to discuss these with you.
It's very dodgy when a 3rd party is paying atty (sometimes loyalties/goals are smudgy), but the atty works for YOU - s/he appeared as the atty of record on your case.

You have the right to report the atty to the state bar, if the atty is not keeping you apprised of the status of your case and advising you of any and all plea bargains, as they are offered.

Given your situation, I would not sign the Motion to W/d and, if the atty asks the court to release him, I'd argue that it would unduly prejudice me as the atty knows the case.

Do you have a lazy atty, or is he just working the 3rd party's interests ?

 

[weplumcrazy]

Thank you for your response. Yes, I am one of 5 defendants. The deal that is being offered, if it is exactly what the attorney has told, is acceptable however I am not satisfied knowing there is a possiblility the whole case could be thrown out if there is indeed a problem with the affidavit for the search warrant.

The attorney is arrogant, and once we "bucked" him on a couple of issues, he got an attitude and basically made up his mind he was going to do as little as possible concerning this case. Our defense was important to the 3rd party, there is nothing he would like better than for us to come out on top because that way his equipment he had seized would be returned. This way with us having to accept the plea offer, he now has to petitiion the court for the return of the equipment, as we won't be eligible to petition since we will be accepting a misdemeanor charge. He did not want to be drug into the court situation so the attorney not doing his job for us affects the third party as well.

After a year of this, on top of being put out of business when the equipment was seized, I frankly don't have the resources to hire another attorney at this late date.

I definitely plan to file a grievance with the bar association.

My main question now is...Should we take our situation to the court coordinator?

 

[garrula lingua]

It's hard to prevail on a Motion To Quash the Search Warrant.

A Judge signed the darn thing, so there should have been probable cause for the issuance.

An attorney can waste hours and hours on briefing this & appearing.
99.9% of the time, it's a losing battle.
Also, if the Prosecutor offered a decent misd plea bargain, that would prob be withdrawn if there's further action fighting the case.
If the original charge was a felony, that can also be the only dispo offered by the People after a failed SW argument.
If I thought I'd prevail at jury trial, I'd fight the search warrant.
Otherwise, I'd take the offer and put it behind me.