Comments on: legal info vs. legal advice in arizona courts

By: david giacalone

david giacalone — Fri, 18 May 2007 14:28:41 +0000

Kathleen, I can’t offer you much advice at this time, but perhaps other readers might have some. It would help if you told us what state you live in and the kind of lawsuit that is involved (not a lot of facts, just the nature of the suit). I can understand that you want the lawsuit to be finished as soon as possible, but a short delay may be worthwhile if it allows you to find a lawyer that you can feel more comfortable with and who is willing to agree to a fee arrangement that better meets your situation. Have you looked into moving the case to your old lawyer’s new firm? Perhaps the local bar’s fee arbitration program can help you work out a reasonable compromise with the senior partner.

By: kathleen bradshaw

kathleen bradshaw — Fri, 18 May 2007 05:55:27 +0000

We were just notified by our lawyer of 2 years that he is leaving his law firm and turning the case over to the senior partner……mind you our court date is now 83 days away and this sebior partner wants all court and ather fee up front. Has aked that we come up with a very large sum of money within 30 days or she will not represent us, and when I say large sum of money….I mean about 20-30 thousand dollars. Who in the world can come up with that in 30 days? And on top of that she notified us that she cost more that the lawyer that is leaving. This just doesn’t seem right. we are being penalized for our other lawyer leaving. We must now pay our balance with them and at the same time try to find someone to take on our case to make this court date. Anyone have any sugesstions or helpful information. We need a lawyer that is willing to take on our case with a small retainer fee and minimal (meaning about $1,000.00 to 2,000.00) payments per month. Our court date is in the middle of August and we hate to delay it. It’s been 2 years now that this case has consumed our lives. We just want to get through the court date and move on. Please help!!!!!

By: Advice versus information « PLE / Canada / Fulbright

Advice versus information « PLE / Canada / Fulbright — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:40:01 +0000

[...] The unauthorized practice concern, although it can loom in a staffperson’s mind and has come up again and again as a reason for official tentativeness towards PLE, has not turned out to be a real day-to-day threat to PLE in Canada.* That’s a damn good thing, too, because nobody really knows exactly what “legal advice” is. The advice vs. information issue is one that many folks have tackled (legal scholars, law librarians, bar personnel, court administrators, and self-represented litigant support program task forces, to name the major groups), but that no one has pinned down. A common solution is to offer guidelines to information providers in the form of “what you can do” and “what you can’t do” lists [consider the set of deliverables from the Arizona Supreme Court’s recent study of the issue, discussed on the Self-Help Law ExPress blog [link]]. [...]