Ethics Question

[Nitrostang]

My wife and I had a situation with my Homeowners Associaton and felt the need to retain an Attorney. Keeping it quick, we were installing a pool which we had all current permits and approvals from the HOA. Along comes a Hurricane and destroys my existing fence. Needless to say wood or the fencing I neded was just not availbale due to the Hurricane. I was now left with an unsecured hole in my back yard. I spoke to the city and they gave me alist of options for alternative fences. We picked what was readily available and the HOA said no. They had it in there By Laws that only the fence that got destroyed was allowable. Problem is that the Building Code said it was not. We needed to make a choice and obviously followed State and Federal Law.

We hired an Attorney who came to my residence and listened to the complete story. He fealt we had a very strong case of Selective enforcement due to others in the community having other fences tan the allowable one. Even the President of the HOA had an illegal fence. His first order of business was to correspond with the HOA attorney in writing to get them off our back. The HOA then officially took us to court. We ended up firing this guy because he did nothing for us at all other than talk to us on the phone.

We ended up winning the case by defending ourselves due to whatwe had learned from doing our own investigation. Problem is that the Attorney never would give me a copy of our file for our records. Come to find out from the HOA Attorney that they never received anything in writing from my attorney. He claimed he had written to them 2 times.

I am attempting to sue him in small claims court for his unethical issues. Problem is that I have had the Sherrif attempt to serve him with 10 physical attempts. Every time there was nobody available. he works from home so I went there to see if anyone was there at all. I went on a Sunday and amazingly he wass on the front lawn with his kids. Why? Because he knows he can't be served on a Sunday. We then hired a Private Server and the same thing happened other than in a Phone conversation he acknowledged that e would accept Service. Nothing has come of this.

That is issue number 1. Issue number 2 is that he has given us a bill stating that he wrote the letter. We contacted the Florida Bar and they will not do anything even though we have proven to them of his unethical behavior and refusal to accept service.

HELP! What can I do to get this Scum Bag?

 

[dee_dub]

You can't sue someone for unethical issues. Even in small claims court. Sounds like he might have breached your retainer agreement - you could sue him for that, or you could just not pay the bill. If it was me, I'd choose the latter. Let him sue you to try to collect.

If you really want to sue him, and he's avoiding being served, get an order for substitutional service (or whatever it's called in Florida) and post your court documents to his door.

What do you want the Florida bar to do? It'll be difficult to prove he DIDN'T write a letter. If you dispute his bill for writing a letter, don't pay it. Take it to court for an accounting.

 

[Nitrostang]

You can't sue someone for unethical issues. Even in small claims court. Sounds like he might have breached your retainer agreement - you could sue him for that, or you could just not pay the bill. If it was me, I'd choose the latter. Let him sue you to try to collect.

If you really want to sue him, and he's avoiding being served, get an order for substitutional service (or whatever it's called in Florida) and post your court documents to his door.

What do you want the Florida bar to do? It'll be difficult to prove he DIDN'T write a letter. If you dispute his bill for writing a letter, don't pay it. Take it to court for an accounting.

We prepaid a Retainer up front. So this Substitutional Service allows me to basically Serve him myself? Wouldn't that be Tresspassing, or would he have to issue the warning first?

As for the Bar is concerned. We contacted them to make them aware of how unethical he was being. We have evidence proving he did not write a letter at all. When the HOA finally came after us and we received the Subpeona form there attorney, it included correspondence stating that within the attorneys multiple telephone conversations where was the letter that was supposedly sent. The COPY of the letter did not finally appear until after he received a letter from the Bar stating that we were requesting a copy of the file. He also felt strongly enough to retain his wn attorney o protect himslf.

Please explain about this Substitutional Service idea. I would love to be the one to officially serve him.

 

[dee_dub]

Substituted service might not be the term you use for it in FL. I don't know Florida's specific trespassing laws and service rules. But if someone is avoiding service (or just really hard to find), you can go to court and get an order allowing you to "serve" them some way other than handing them the papers personally. Usual ways are posting the papers to the door of their home, leaving them with their spouse, sending them by registered mail, etc. Look to your Florida rules, or talk to a lawyer or process server.