A question for the attorneys present........

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knife hunter

knife hunter

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If you were hired by an individual to dispute tax assesments, and after you started working on this, the county in question told you that you could not work this case or that the county would not hire one of your Legal clerks to do work on their behalf...

Would you abandon your client?

Isnt this unethical, and should I report such?
 
I'm not a lawyer but that's politics for you. You need to ask yourself if it's really even worth the fight. Even if you win, they probably know a lot of people though politics and you may lose or not get other clients and could be blackballed. Then again, you could look bad because you gave up a client... No easy answer...
 
not an attorney, but spent 30 years in LE work and have answered about as many lawsuits some attorneys, sounds like a reverse spin on quid pro quo.

also sounds like the county wants to do a little controlling or micro-managing. either of those mentioned show zero ability to lead!!!
 
Sounds like Blackmail to me, but then I am not a lawyer.
 
Doesn't sound entirely cricket, but I don't think any ethics rules were violated, as long as there aren't any deadlines just around the corner, any unearned fees are returned, and you have time to get someone else.

In general, a lawyer can quit so long as "withdrawal can be accomplished without material adverse effect on the interests of the client." after that, the typical rule is:

"Upon termination of representation, a lawyer shall take steps to the extent reasonably practicable to protect a client's interests, such as giving reasonable notice to the client, allowing time for employment of other counsel, surrendering papers and property to which the client is entitled and refunding any advance payment of fee or expense that has not been earned or incurred. The lawyer may retain papers relating to the client to the extent permitted by other law."

(This is from Rule 1.16 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Most jurisdictions follow the model rules, or sopmething pretty close.)



ETA: It occurs to me that if by "legal clerk" you mean a law student or recent graduate who's interning with the firm, it could just be that the county and the lawyer are trying to avoid a conflict of interests that might create problems with the ethics rules if the clerk goes to work for the county.
 
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I would think having one of your clerks working for the organization your are in dispute with could create a conflict of interest.

I'm not an attorney AND I slept at home last night, but I would think this happens often. Politics? No. Just ensuring that a law firm doesn't get into a jam if the clerk finds some info that could be used in the case and said-lawyer now has to make an ethics call himself. It's sort of like not letting someone on a diet work at Ben & Jerry's.

You could push the issue - there is likely no "legal" reason your clerk can't do work for them. But it'd probably be a battle.

Or I could be all wet. But depsite not sleeping at a HIE, I got a really good sleep last night. ;)
 
I would assume that KH is the client who has been dropped, and is wondering if he has any recourse.
 
Tree Herder V said:
Why was Mr. T banned? Does anybody know anything? :confused: :(
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I haven't heard anything, but I'm guessing it might have something to do with this (from an apparently drunken exchange in Whine & Cheese):

knife hunter said:
are you fucking serious!???????

I for one woke up that moring watching smoke pillar over the city I had lived in for 12 years!

You are lucky your arent in my vicinty bro.......


cause Id knock you the fuck out!
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It doesn't seem like it ought to be enbough for a ban, but based on the red chicklet, it does seem to have drawn an infraction.
 
ok what give's, is t banned or are y'all playing an april's fool's joke?
 
Tree Herder V said:
Why was Mr. T banned? Does anybody know anything? :confused: :(
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Even in the non-family friendly/non-pc forums, it's considered poor form to threaten another member with bodily harm. KH was red flagged for doing this and accrued enough points to put him over the auto-ban limit.

Regarding the premise of the thread, I know a little about this though some of the particulars in this case don't seem to make any sense to me. The way it works down here in Palm Beach county, an individual or his/her agent will go before the Value Adjustment Board with a full report on 3 properties similar to their own that sold for less than their appraised amount within the last year. It is then up to the individual, or agent, to provide the VAB with evidence that their own property's taxable value should be in line with the 3 cases presented. What will often happen is that an individual will hire someone to do this process for them and the agent will then do his comparables and find that it would be worth neither his time nor any more of his customer's (residential properties are usually done for a flat fee while commercial properties are often for a percentage of tax savings) money.

All that being said, I have no clue why any county would tell someone that they have no right work a case, and especially not why, as fighting assessed taxable value is the perogative of the land owner, any legal clerk working for anyone would need to do work on the county's behalf. It seems to me that the man hired to fight this is likely either in trouble with the county for some reason or is not providing full and factual information to his client. Or, the client misunderstood the non-foolproof nature of the process. Hard to say, really.
 
Trevor seems like a very nice guy, and he's been nothing but kind to me, but I've gotta admit I was a bit floored by his really nasty political post, which has nothing to do with the topic of this forum and was moved quickly by the moderators, as it should have been. Further escalating it into personal threats and hateful vitrol, rather than having an adult conversation about topics you disagree with, is not at all what I expect from fellow hogs.


I disagree politically with the vast majority of people here, but I usually make an effort to keep my opinions to myself, because I see no need to stir up trouble or start drama. My desire to keep my opinion to myself is largely due to situations like this, that escalate to such a hateful, emotional, personal attack, based not on facts or interpretation of those facts, but an "us against them" kneejerk mentality.




I will also use this rare opportunity to say that I am often very disappointed in a few of my fellow Hogs for the way certain ones will go out of their way to bash liberals, based on emotional nonsense and not adult discourse about the issues at hand.


I come here to discuss knives, not politics, but if someone insists on bringing up politics, I wish it would be done without childish name calling and hateful attacks. As soon as you realize that both sides pretty much suck, and blindly loving your side while thinking EVERYTHING the other side does is crap is exactly what they want, and exactly how the two party system keeps screwing all of us over.




Ok, off my soap box now :p
 
As to Knife Hunter's question, my input would be that we do not have enough facts to render a cogent opinion. It could be something as simple as the lawyer avoiding a conflict of interest, because he could not engage in representation of both you and the bureaucracy at the same time. I have never worked in private practice, but when Mrs. Powernoodle did, her firm would issue a conflict check every morning on every new client that the firm sought to engage. One can get oneself in some very hot water by engaging a client when lawyer has previously engaged an adverse party. Just a thought.

Best answer, though, is that we don't know the facts.

JMO.
 
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