Posted on
January 19, 2011 in
Thanks to the following bloggers, and especially to our out-of-state colleagues, for weighing in on the State Bar of Texas’s attempts to amend the Disciplinary Rules and efforts to do away with flat fees:
Max Kennerly, Sound And Fury Over Flat Fees, Signifying Nothing
Gideon, Blawg Review #294: MLK, Jr. Day edition
Brian Tannebaum, Shame On The Texas Bar, And Us
Scott Greenfield, Flat Fees and the Last Texas Criminal Defense Lawyer
Colin Samuels, A Round Tuit (53)
Jeff Gamso, If I Only Had a Vote
Paul Smith, It’s Big Vs. Little,, Money Vs. Underdog,, Corporate Vs. Individual
Paul Kennedy, Just follow the money
Paul Kennedy, Let our voices be heard
Paul Kennedy, The State Bar strikes back
Paul Kennedy, State Bar says those opposed to rules changes are liars
Murray Newman, Please Vote No on the Texas State Bar Referendum
(If I’ve left you out, it was inadvertent. Please email me. Paul is kicking butt. Where are the rest of the Texas criminal-defense blawgers? Guest? Matlock? Floyd? Martinez? Breston? Flood? Spencer? Skinner? Barnett? Maselli? That’s right, boys (and girl), I’m callin’ you out. It’s just about time to rework the blogroll, and I’m looking for an excuse.)
Meanwhile, there have been blog posts in favor of the amendments:
State Bar of Texas: Referendum 2011: Q&A with Tom Watkins : State Bar of Texas Blog
State Bar of Texas: Referendum 2011: Clarifying the Issues : State Bar of Texas Blog
(I detect a pattern here.)
Dude;
Don’t forget me.
Paul
Shit. I’m sorry, brother!
I wanted to clarify my remarks since this blog refers to me as a possible “troll”. You make reference to several blogs which discuss the attempts to do away with flat fees. It is my belief that, if the rules are going to be amended, they need to be amended in the following ways: (1) make it more difficult, not less, for a client to bring a fee dispute with a lawyer to a lawyer discipline proceeding; and (2) make it less difficult, not more difficult, for a lawyer to collect earned fees from clients and earn a decent standard of living in this state while still paying make six figure student loan debt. The office policies referenced in my blog are very real and reflect my weariness with a culture of constant grievance threats by clients who change their minds about contractual obligations and who seek to “beat their lawyer” out of earned fees. I find it ironic that the new rules address quite literally address the problems created by lawyers screwing their clients, while completely failing to address what I see as a far bigger problem: clients screwing their lawyers.
Not that you deserve a grievance or don’t deserve your fees, but if you have difficulty collecting earned fees from clients, you have clients making grievance threats, and you have clients screwing you, you are doing something wrong.