When your legal counsel advises you that you owe outstanding fees you don’t think you owe or your client has failed to pay your firm’s invoices, you have options for resolving your legal fee dispute, such as client-requested mandatory fee arbitration. Having experienced legal counsel represent you in a mandatory fee arbitration hearing can help you achieve a fair and favorable outcome in your fee dispute.
Contact Parker Shaffie LLP for an initial consultation with a professional ethics attorney to learn more about fee disputes and mandatory fee arbitration in California and to get experienced legal counsel to protect your rights and interests.
The State Bar of California operates a mandatory fee arbitration program, which provides an informal and confidential forum for clients and lawyers to resolve disputes over legal fees. In most cases, clients initiate mandatory fee arbitration when their attorneys claim that they owe outstanding legal fees and initiate procedures to collect these fees. Clients may request arbitration with a local bar association or the State Bar. When a client requests mandatory fee arbitration, their attorney must participate in the arbitration process, except in limited circumstances, such as:
Mandatory fee arbitrations do not produce binding rulings unless both the client and attorney agree to a binding arbitration. When parties agree to binding arbitration, they cannot request a new trial in court, nor can they appeal the binding arbitration decision except in limited circumstances.
When a client requests mandatory fee arbitration, the bar association will assign the matter to a volunteer attorney arbitrator. Fee disputes involving larger sums of money may go before a three-member panel consisting of two attorney arbitrators and one non-attorney arbitrator. At the arbitration hearing, both the client and attorney may make statements, ask each other questions, and present evidence and witnesses. Clients can also request that the arbitration program compel the attorney to produce relevant documents before the hearing.
A mandatory fee arbitration focuses solely on the appropriateness of the fee amount demanded or paid based on the attorney’s work on the client’s case. Arbitrators can consider several factors when reaching their decisions, including:
Arbitrators cannot award clients money for malpractice committed by their attorney. Instead, an arbitrator’s decision may find that the client owes fees and order the client to pay those fees, or the client paid more than an appropriate amount of fees and order the attorney to provide a refund, or that neither party owes anything more to the other.
Legal clients in California may request mandatory fee arbitration when their attorney sends a “Notice of Client’s Right to Fee Arbitration” before the attorney files a lawsuit or pursues legal action to collect an outstanding fee the attorney claims their client owes. After the client receives the State Bar-approved notice, they may demand mandatory fee arbitration by filing an arbitration request form with the local bar association serving their community, or with the State Bar of California if their local bar association does not have a mandatory fee arbitration program in place. Clients must submit their request for arbitration within 30 days of receiving the notice from their attorney.
Alternatively, clients may also request mandatory fee arbitration of a fee dispute in which they allege they have overpaid their attorney and seek a refund of fees paid to the lawyer. Clients must request mandatory fee arbitration of such disputes within the applicable statute of limitations.
Attorneys can also initiate mandatory fee arbitration if the attorney and their client have signed a fee or retainer agreement that requires the parties to submit fee disputes to mandatory fee arbitration. However, the law will only enforce a mandatory arbitration agreement signed by the parties before their fee dispute arose.
Some of the benefits of mandatory fee arbitration for parties include:
Disputes between attorneys and clients that mandatory fee arbitration can resolve include:
When you find yourself in a legal fee dispute facing mandatory fee arbitration, hiring experienced legal counsel can improve your chances of obtaining a favorable result. Let a professional liability attorney from Parker Shaffie LLP guide you through the mandatory fee arbitration process because:
Whether you have a fee dispute with your legal counsel or a client has initiated mandatory fee arbitration against you and your firm, you need experienced legal representation to protect your financial interests and professional reputation. Contact Parker Shaffie LLP today for a confidential consultation with a knowledgeable fee dispute attorney to understand the mandatory fee arbitration process and for help pursuing a fair and favorable resolution to an outstanding legal fee dispute.
