Today I got a call from the New York County Lawyers Association, where I had filed a Client Request for Fee Arbitration in May, 2012, with the Joint Committee on Fee Disputes and Conciliation.<\/p>\n
The woman who called me was knowledgeable and succinct.<\/p>\n
But she told me that my request could not be heard by the Joint Committee, which does not arbitrate personal injury cases \u2014 that is, contingency cases. I hadn’t known that; the Joint Committee lady told me it was in their rules, which I’d thought I’d read pretty thoroughly. Indeed, now that I’m looking at their rules, I realize that the wording did not ring out to me, given that it doesn’t say “contingency.”<\/p>\n
I think “disputes where the fee to be paid by the client has been determined by statute or rule and allowed as of right by a court, or where the fee has been determined by a court order;” is the rule she mentioned.<\/p>\n
However, that is that for the Joint Committee. I did discuss with the nice woman what I had done, i.e., filed a complaint in the Disciplinary Committee, and when I described briefly what the problem was \u2014 I hadn’t received my settlement and was disputing the costs and disbursements Dinkes & Schwitzer intend to charge me \u2014 she commented that it was definitely a Disciplinary Committee matter.<\/p>\n
But. I still don’t have my settlement and now I’m not sure how I’m going to get it. The nice lady said that I could file a pro se<\/em> (DIY) action in Supreme Court and worried a little about the difficulty of doing it. But I assured her I had no similar worry: if that’s what I need to do, I’ll do it.<\/p>\n I’ll think about this for a day or so and then figure this out. And of course I’ll let you know what I find out and what I decide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today I got a call from the New York County Lawyers Association, where I had filed a Client Request for Fee Arbitration in May, 2012, with the Joint Committee on Fee Disputes and Conciliation. The woman who called me was … Continue reading