{"id":7754,"date":"2012-03-24T17:57:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-24T21:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=7754"},"modified":"2012-07-13T14:37:17","modified_gmt":"2012-07-13T18:37:17","slug":"why-file-a-complaint-against-your-lawyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidebarforplaintiffs.naomifein.net\/?p=7754","title":{"rendered":"Why file a complaint against your lawyer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAgain nothing done!\u201d says Richard.\u00a0 \u201cNothing, nothing done!\u201d<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t say nothing done, sir,\u201d returns the placid Vholes.\u00a0 \u201cThat is scarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!\u201d<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWhy, what is done?\u201d says Richard, turning gloomily upon him.<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThat may not be the whole question,\u201d returns Vholes. \u201cThe question may branch off into what is doing, what is doing?\u201d<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cAnd what is doing?\u201d asks the moody client.<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Vholes, sitting with his arms on his desk, quietly bringing the tips of his five right fingers to meet the tips of his five left fingers, and quietly separating them again, and fixedly and slowly looking at his client, replies:<\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cA good deal is doing, sir.\u00a0 We have put our shoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is going round.\u201d<\/span> \u2014 Charles Dickens, Bleak House<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, Dickens got this precisely right, in all its complexity. When we face our lawyers, how do we find the language to carve into their<\/em> language, to say straightforwardly, “I don’t think you’re doing what you could be doing for me.”<\/p>\n

“Why, what is done?” says gloomy Richard Carstone. So how do we determine whether our lawyers, despite all their orotundity, have left something undone?<\/p>\n

Here’s how. Go again to the right hand column on this page. Under Sites of Interes<\/strong>t, find and click on the Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys<\/strong>. As I told you previously<\/a>, it’s only 43 pages long and is written in such a way that actual human beings, i.e., you and I, will find it comprehensible. In order to file a complaint against a lawyer, you will need to pull from these Rules the specific rules you believe your lawyer broke.<\/p>\n

I learned how and why to do this a few years ago when I prepared a complaint against a lawyer whom I came to call Shmucksky. Shmucksky wasn’t my lawyer and in fact he really wasn’t anybody’s lawyer; he was functioning in an entirely different advisory capacity when I was summoned to meet him.<\/p>\n

In the course of offering his unsolicited and utterly self-serving “advice,” Shmucksky said a couple of legally stupid things and made a threat, a false and empty threat against someone I loved.<\/p>\n

Dumb. When I came home in a towering fury, I began digging up all the information I needed to prepare a complaint against this guy. In the end, I was talked out of filing it by another, very nice lawyer, whose advice was wise \u2014 even if it didn’t dampen my righteous anger. But before I was talked out of it, I prepared the entire complaint filing. And aren’t we all lucky I did, because now we can all benefit from my truncated experience.<\/p>\n

Before I tell you precisely what to do, though, let me relate the Why. Because the Why itself will soothe you a bit.<\/p>\n

It was a lawyer who first told me what happens after you file a complaint against a lawyer \u2014 which you file in the state court division in which the lawyer is registered to practice.\u00a0 That court division assigns the complaint to an investigatory committee. Which investigates. Here are possible committee actions I just cut and pasted from the Unified Court System website:<\/p>\n