If you are having second thoughts about that lawyer you hired for your personal injury case, you have options. Under California law, you have the right to the attorney of your choice. If there was a retainer agreement signed and the attorney chose to take your case upon a contingency agreement, you should not have to pay a percentage of your awards to both attorneys. The original attorney should fairly receive a cut of the award contingency for the work that he actually did on the case before the new lawyer took over. These are professional ethics obligations that may arguably form grounds to nullify a retainer contract that is written contrary to this principle.
When you need a San Francisco injury attorney halfway through your case, it is in your best interests to contact Cartwright Law. Our San Francisco injury attorney firm has the professionalism and experience that clients expect to present their case in the best light. Don’t waste your time arguing with a bull-headed attorney who is using a strategy that is duplicitous. If there is a broken bond of trust between you and your attorney, things are only going to get worse as tension builds between opposing sides of the argument. Some attorneys may not care what the truth is that you have firm convictions regarding.
Many clients feel that their attorneys are not doing their job and are seeking to make the quickest settlement possible. However, it’s highly recommended you ensure that you retain a new attorney to take over the work of your previous counsel before giving that lawyer the boot. You may otherwise be held responsible for deadlines and filings yourself during the lapsed period. Unless it is days before trial, you typically have the right to switch attorneys by having your new attorney file a substitution of attorney form and/or notice of appearance with the court. Under the rules of professional conduct, your attorney is obligated to provide you with your entire case-file promptly and free of charge. The work-product and materials are legally your possession under the law.
The ultimate question turns on trust. If your lawyer is talking over you and acting incoherent when you ask him to address relevant matters, you can bet that he already has the whole case scripted. He doesn’t care what the facts or law are at this point. He wants the easy money and feels that he has put in sufficient work to get what he wants out of the case. There is no point in continuing in such a sham attorney-client relationship.
It is only in these extreme cases that it is advisable to hire a new attorney mid-case.
You will otherwise be paying larger attorney fees for duplicate work in digesting the case and building a more thorough strategy. If you have experts already on the case, the new council will very likely not want to work with experts who have loyal bonds to the fired attorney. However, there is little to consider if your current attorney is disrespectful.
For more information on our San Francisco Injury Attorney, please visit our site.
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