Details in the recent correspondence between me and the lawyer –
" I am greatly disturbed, astonished, concerned and disappointed to receive this document reflecting a disproportionate value of assumed charged services from your office. The timesheet – invoice has been altered, embellished and does not reflect a real occurring exchange between us. Their was no written signed or approved client engagement or retainer agreement that was yet determined between each other. Without signed approval or even having a clear direction in the nature of the reasonable value of legal services to be rendered, I recommend you honestly reevaluate and disaffirm this invoice.
Based on our phone correspondence, you requested for me to provide you with relevant facts to describe the circumstances related to the business, my involvement and gather information on the other partner’s position and status around the separation of the verbal business venture and partnership, and to subsequently follow-up with you. With candor I shared with you in very short, explicit and brief phone conversations the relevant facts and circumstances of the business decision that I needed to make with this matter, offering the current status of the business, the assets, vendor debt, clients, lease agreement, role and responsibilities that we had and the existing position with ….. the partner having uncertainty, being ill equipped with the matter and unable to bring a plan of action or resolution. You did not answer any questions nor in return bring me a clear rational exit strategy or substantive legal advise. Entrusting you to help with this matter "my livelihood" – I did not receive any substantial guidance – you did not instruct me in considering my options and to offer me a systematic evaluation of probabilities and consequences. In our meeting I introduced the urgent need to prepare a legal written document to solidify my separation and departure from the company and seek to negotiate concessions as well as to protect me from existing and future liabilities, for which I did not receive such a letter nor advise on what liabilities to be concerned with, instead I was mailed a impersonal embellished invoice from your office. This should be beyond dispute, I have not received adequate services, a clear rational exit strategy communicated to me, nor a legal document that would support this matter to be resolved in a quick and amicable manner for the both of us to agree and sign. I feel you did not provide relevant advise, clear perimeters of your counsel, time, as well as us having agreed on fixed terms for the fees based on actual work completed and or to be provided.
This is not what I anticipated from you or your law firm, at this point, this has cost me valuable time, agony, distress, significant loss of money, loss of any controlling interest in the business " ….." with the result of us separating from each other with no clear written resolve, it’s brought me significant credit card debt, and with the impact of the economic conditions I’ve been unemployed for months. I find it would be difficult for your firm to restore client confidence going forward and assume this matter to be closed. "
Note: He has chosen to disregard the letter and the facts. His office has sent me a invoice with added interest in the past 3 months for 1,900.00 . What further steps can i take or should do ?
What you can do depends partly on where you are. If you believe the law firm has acted irresponsibly or unprofessionally, and you have exhausted all complaints procedures that the law firm itself has, then you could write to the law firm’s supervisory body. Certainly, if you are in England and Wales, there would be a prima facie case against the law firm (the lack of an engagement letter between you and the firm being unprofessional in the first instance).
Ultimately, unless there is a specific law about legal fees in your jurisdiction, it would be up to the law firm to sue you for non-payment of fees. In the absence of a written contract, you would have to pay them a fair price for the services provided. You seem to be arguing that that fair price is nil – and you may be able to get a Court to agree to that. Alternatively, the law firm may be able to get a Court to agree to its position. Whether the law firm has a right to pay interest is down to local law. In the absence of a local law allowing them to charge you interest, and in the absence of an agreement between them and you allowing them to charge you interest, then no interest would be payable.