- Jurisdiction
- Illinois
A company in Florida used my copyrighted images on its website to sell their own products. I sued them in Illinois. My lawyer told me it would cost $5-$6k to file the lawsuit and sent me the first bill at $15k and explained that a lot more work has to go into it, including proving that we should have jurisdiction in Illinois. I assumed we would have jurisdiction and wouldn't have entered into this lawsuit, not in Illinois for sure, had I known we had to prove a right to jurisdiction. I had no evidence whatsoever that the florida company was selling into Illinois. All I knew for sure was that they were using my copyrighted images. Next month my lawyer sends me a bill for $20k. And we are still about 2 months from the Judge ruling on jurisdiction. I didn't sign up to gamble away $50,000 if not more on the possibility of getting jurisdiction. My lawyer never told me that we would have to do this. I feel like I'm getting screwed by my own lawyer. Is there anything that can be done about this? I was a victim and now I feel like even more of a victim after hiring a law firm that was meant to make me whole. My company doesn't have this kind of money. We are a small business.