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ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS SHORT OF FILING
A COMPLAINT
Your dissatisfaction with an attorney may
not be grounds for a complaint. You may therefore want to try
alternative solutions to your problem before filing A complaint.
You may now learn about some of those solutions by selecting from
the following topics.
If you believe that
your attorney's fees are too high.
If you believe that your attorney's bill
is too high, you should first talk to your lawyer about the bill,
and make your concerns clear. You may find that the case was more
complicated and took more time than you realized or your lawyer may
agree that a mistake was made on the bill.
If you can't resolve the problem by
discussing it with your attorney, you can request fee arbitration.
Most county and city bar associations operate fee arbitration
programs. To contact your local bar association, look in the white
pages of your telephone directory under the name of your city or
county.
In the event there is no local bar
association in your area, or your local bar association will not
undertake an arbitration in your area, you can also contact the
State Bar Fee Arbitration office at (415) 538-2020 or write
Mandatory Fee Arbitration, State Bar of California, 180 Howard st.,
San Francisco, Ca. 94105-1639.
If you need to find a new
attorney.
The State Bar cannot give you legal
advice or refer you to an attorney. If you need to hire an attorney
to handle your case or want to consult an attorney on a potential
case, a
certified lawyer referral service can put you in touch with a
lawyer who can handle your problem. If your particular problem can
be resolved without a lawyer, the referral service will tell you
how to get the help you need.
Be sure that the service is certified by
the State Bar. Lawyer referral services which are certified follow
certain rules which will protect you.
A certified lawyer referral service may
direct you to lawyers with experience in certain areas of the law
such as bankruptcy, criminal, probate, landlord-tenant, family law
and other areas.
Certification Rules also encourage
lawyer referral services to offer free and low cost legal help as
well as lawyers who speak languages in addition to english. In
order to find an attorney referral service, look in the yellow
pages at the beginning of the listing of 'Attorneys' for the name
and number of a
State Bar certified lawyer referral service, or follow the links on this page.
If you are having
difficulty communicating with your attorney.
If you are having difficulty with
communication with your attorney, you should consider the following
before filing a complaint with the State Bar:
- Telephone the attorney's office and leave a
message for a return call.
- If you do not receive a return call within a
reasonable period of time, write a letter to the attorney,
preferably with return receipt requested, requesting the attorney
to contact you within a specified (reasonable) period of time. If
the attorney fails to respond, this letter can be used as evidence
for future State Bar purposes.
If you are having
difficulty obtaining files from your attorney.
The
Rules of Professional Conduct require an
attorney to return to a client all papers and property to which the
client is entitled. The complete original file belongs to the
client and the attorney may copy the file at his or her own
expense.
However, if an agreement has been entered
with the attorney relating to copy costs, you may be responsible
for such costs. This is only true when you are seeking copies of
the file while you are still being represented by the attorney. You
should make a formal request to the attorney in writing. If the
attorney fails to respond, this letter can be used as evidence for
future State Bar purposes.
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