Find Out if Your Attorney Fee Contract Contains this Provision Because it Might Be Rejected in Court As Unfair to You, the Client

Have you signed an “Engagement Letter” or “Retainer Agreement” with a lawyer? These are the names for attorney fee contracts. Do you know that certain provisions in a fee contract with your attorney may not be legally enforceable in a court of law for being unfair to you, the client? For example, in New York, if the lawyer’s fee contract contains a provision that entitles the lawyer to recover attorney fees to collect a payment the client allegedly owes for services, but does not contain a reciprocal provision for the client should the client prevail in a fee dispute against the lawyer, then the lawyer will not be entitled to attorney fees. That’s what the law says. In other words, if only the attorney is entitled to recover attorney fees under the contract, then the attorney fees will not be allowable, according to the matrimonial fees collection case of Reisman, Peirez, & Reisman v. Gazzara, 15 Misc. 3d 1113(A), 839 N.Y.S.2d 436 (Sup. Ct., Nassau Co. 2007). This case involved a fee dispute between a divorce client and the client’s former divorce attorneys. Even when the fee dispute arises out of a non-divorce matter, however, the policy of the courts is well established to forbid such one sided retainer provisions, through the precedent-setting decision of Ween v. Dow, 35 A.D.3d 58, 822 N.Y.S.2d 257 (1st Dept. 2006).