Re: Overbilling

More | Report Post

In Rohan v. Rosenblatt, No. 930116887S, 1999 WL 643501
(Conn.Super. Aug. 13, 1999), plaintiff brought an action
against the defendant to recover allegedly unreasonable and
excessive legal fees. The defendant had charged a one-third
contingency fee to collect the proceeds of a $100,000 life
insurance policy. In finding the contingency fee to be
unreasonable violation of Rule 1.5(a) and (c), the court held
that, Ë[a] contingent fee is appropriate only where there is
a genuine risk whether the attorney will be able to bring an
asset into the clientÁs possession. If there is no
significant risk with regard to the representation, a
contingency fee agreement is not appropriate.Ó Id. at *3. The
court reasoned that similarly to the case at bar, Ë[t]he
clear case where there would be an absence of real risk would
be a case in which an attorney attempts to collect from a
client a supposedly contingent fee for obtaining insurance
proceeds for a client when there is no indication that the
insurer will resist the claim.Ó Id. (emphasis in original).

Responces are encouraged