Can I Fire My Tampa Personal Injury Law Firm?

After a car accident in Tampa, St. Petersburg or Clearwater, your life can suddenly become very difficult to manage and there are suddenly a myriad of new issues and challenges that you face. 
You hire a Tampa car accident lawyer that you believe will do a great job representing you so that you can focus on recovering from your car accident injuries. 

Although your relationship with your Tampa car accident law firm may have started with great promise, you may find that the law firm you hired does not meet your expectations.  The problems you encounter can include phone calls that are not returned, staff that are not experienced or keep changing, disorganization that causes unnecessary delays and an overall attitude at the Tampa law firm that signals to you that no one really cares about your particular case and the challenges you face.  It can be very frustrating not to get the individual attention you need when you’re in need of it the most.

Many people will stay with the Tampa car accident lawyer they’ve hired even though they are growing increasingly frustrated and feel certain they’ve made a poor decision.  They may feel hopeless not knowing how to go about making the change or they don’t know that they have the right to. 

The answer to the question, can I fire my personal injury law firm is yes. Whether you should is the subject of another article posted on this website; but it is also something that you should discuss with the new law firm that you may be hiring.    

You may ask, how is it that I can fire my Tampa car accident injury law firm when I haven’t paid them any money and my contingency fee agreement says I’m not going to pay them until there is a settlement?  Florida law recognizes that while you may have entered into a contingency fee agreement, you should have the right to terminate your relationship with your car accident injury lawyer if they are not living up to your expectations. 

In those situations where you fire your injury lawyer in Tampa, St. Petersburg or Clearwater before the contingency is recognized, Florida law says that you will owe the fired law firm money based on quantum meruit   Quantum meruit is a Latin phrase meaning “as much as he [the law firm] deserves.”   Now this quantum meruit fee will only be paid to the fired injury law firm if there is eventually a settlement in your case. If there is no settlement, then the fired law firm will not receive anything.

So, what if there is a settlement.  How is the quantum meruit fee determined?  The first thing your new Tampa law firm will do once a settlement is reached is contact the fired law firm to discuss a settlement figure for what’s referred to as their “lien” on your case.  Often this discussion will result in a negotiated amount that you will find satisfactory.  This is most likely to happen if you fired your Tampa injury attorney rather soon after hiring them and particularly if you fire them before any settlement offers from the insurance company have been made as more fully discussed below.    

If these initial negotiations fail, your new Tampa auto accident lawyer will ask the fired law firm to put together an accounting of their hours that they claim they put into your case.   Your current injury attorney will review the hours to see if the amount of time the fired Tampa injury attorney claims they put into the case is reasonable.  Often, the fired law firm won’t want to go through the effort of completing the accounting which may encourage further negotiations.  But if not, usually your new Tampa law firm will use the list of hours to continue the negotiations between the firms.  One of the arguments that may be made by your new law firm during these discussions is that the hours presented by the fired injury law firm are inflated or that perhaps the fired car accident lawyers put a lot of hours into the case but accomplished nothing beneficial or useful to you during all that time.  Of course, part of the conversation between the auto accident lawyers may also involve discussion about how poorly the fired law firm performed their duties overall during their representation of you.    

If your current Tampa car accident law firm cannot reach a final negotiated number with the fired  firm, then the matter will be taken to a judge for final determination. At this hearing before the judge, each side will present evidence with regard to how much they believe the fees should be.  The fired auto accident law firm will likely present the accounting breakdown of their hourly billing to the judge and they may also bring another attorney to the hearing to represent to the judge that the fired law firm’s hourly billing were reasonable and necessary given the nature of the car accident injury claim.

Your Tampa injury lawyer will have an opportunity to present your case to the judge as well.
During that presentation, your accident attorney will likely point out the difficulties that you experienced while being represented by the fired law firm. Your attorney will explain that the firm was not effectively representing you.  The attorney will explain to the judge that you had no interest in firing the Tampa car accident lawyer you hired but were forced to given the concerns you had regarding the representation. During this hearing you will likely have the opportunity to present testimony to the judge yourself about why you felt it was necessary to fire the previous firm.  Your attorney may also bring in witnesses to the hearing as well including possibly the fired Tampa injury law firm’s own personnel.

Because many law firms don't wish to have their faults brought to the attention of a judge that they may one day appear in front of on other matters, having to take the dispute over the quantum meruit fees to a hearing before a judge is not the norm.   But if it is necessary, your current injury attorney will hopefully present your case effectively to the judge so as to minimize the amount of quantum meruit fees owed to the fired law firm.

At our law firm, we are very well aware of the client's right to leave and go elsewhere. We are dedicated to making sure that our injury clients have no reason to want to leave our firm by making sure that all calls are returned promptly, that our staff is caring, experienced and knowledgeable, and that should any problems arise that they are immediately addressed. About 10% of our clients come to us after they have had a poor experience at another auto accident law firm and decided that it would be in their best interest to fire that firm.   We are glad for the opportunity to represent these people and provide to them the outstanding service and legal representation that they deserve and have every right to expect. Please feel free to call us about whether it makes sense to fire your current car accident lawyer in Tampa, St. Petersburg or Clearwater if they are not meeting your expectations.