I recently tried to buy a franchise. I pulled out at the last minute. My attorney gave me an initial estimate of costs involved. His final bill more than doubled the estimate. A good deal of the over run was because in his review of the franchise agreement he missed relevant information. This caused many communications (each with a charge attached to it)and eventually led to me pulling out of the deal. I consistantly told him I was worried about legal expenses, he consistantly responded that I had no need to worry. We never signed a contract, but I did give him contingency money. I wrote him with my concerns, he responded that he will giive me 6 months to pay him off. What are my choices? I really can't afford to pay him for what really was more than a little his mess up.
I would have your attorney send you an itemized bill. If the bill does not match his initial estimate, I would contact the local law society or bar association, or governing body and file a written complaint. Keep in mind, lawyers are highly governed and don't want to risk losing their license.
Thank you X, If anyone wants to listen or try to help, here are more of my concerns on this matter. They did send me an itemized statement. However, it is my opinion that not only aren't they taking responsibility for errors but I just feel tricked. For example, I needed to send over some documents. I told the attorney I would rather drop them off then have them courriered over because I didn't want to spend the money for the courrier. I dropped the papers off, they don't have a receptionist, I poked my head into the attorneys office to give him the papers, as a matter of good manners I said hi and we had a conversation, mostly social, a bit of business. Well it turned out I was charged for the phone call to say I was dropping off papers and charged for two office visits, since the head attorney popped in to say hi as well. Another piece is that even though I did meet with them, the date on the invoice was wrong as I was 1000 miles away on the date
