November 12, 2007
By ERIC VELASCO, News staff writer
Alabama places too many barriers before clients challenging the fees charged by their lawyers, a national legal consumer advocacy group said in a recent study.
The Washington-based group, HALT - An Organization of Americans for Legal Reform, gave the state the letter grade of D and ranked Alabama 34th among the states and the District of Columbia.
HALT gave Alabama poor marks because the state has a multi-step process for settling fee disputes out of court. Also, lawyers can choose not to participate and only lawyers serve as mediators or arbitrators in those challenges.
The rules force consumers to take their disputes to court, which can be expensive and time consuming, said HALT Senior Counsel Suzanne M. Blonder.
"The most pervasive complaint about lawyers is that their fees are too high for the work done," she said. "The state bar's reliance on lawyers to resolve disputes adds to the public's perception that the fee arbitration system is of the lawyers, by the lawyers and for the lawyers."
But the head of Alabama's system for resolving legal fee disputes said it is consumer-friendly and gives people choices.
Alabama follows standard procedures for alternative dispute resolution, a process of settling disagreements without having to go to court, said Judy Keegan, executive director of the Alabama Center for Dispute Resolution, which handles legal fee challenges.
Alabama's center offers mediation, in which both sides talk through the issue seeking consensus, and arbitration, in which a third party hears both sides' arguments then makes a decision that is binding.
People must go through mediation before they can try arbitration.
HALT believes the two-step process creates unnecessary delays for consumers.
"If you have to jump through this hoop, you are not able to resolve the issue in an effective and efficient way," HALT's Blonder said. "Our preference is a system that offers both mediation and arbitration, but allows the parties to have a choice on mediation."
The arbitration process should be mandatory for lawyers, HALT's study said.
Keegan, however, said starting with mediation allows people to come to a mutually agreeable solution, rather than having a decision rammed down their throat.
"There has never been a question that, if a person could go to mediation before arbitration, it would be better," said Keegan, who has 21 years of experience in the field. "You can negotiate there. I think it's a good thing for consumers not to have to go straight to arbitration."
Mediation:
Mediation is a preferred first step, said Henry Strickland, an associate dean and professor at Cumberland School of Law at Samford University and an expert in alternative dispute resolution.
"It tends to be less adversarial, and it can bring to light underlying needs that can't be addressed in arbitration or court," he said. "An adversarial approach - arbitration or court - is the last alternative, rather than the first."
Having only lawyers serving as mediators or arbitrators can be a double-edged sword for people fighting a legal fee, Strickland said.
Some expertise is needed in those roles, but their actions can be colored by their own professional perspectives and biases, he said.
"It probably does not engender confidence, but is it fair?" Strickland said. "That's the decision each person must make: Is the potential for bias too much?"
Keegan praised the roster of lawyers the center uses for arbitrators and mediators, who volunteer their time and will go to where the parties in dispute are located.
But HALT's Blonder said a way around the bias issue is to provide proper training to non-lawyers in arbitration, then use lawyers as expert witnesses to evaluate the fees in dispute. A good system would include both lawyers and non-lawyers in the pool of decision-makers, she said.
"That way consumers who feel they have been battling an inflated fee for months or years will feel they have a shot at a successful resolution," Blonder said.
HALT also said Alabama does a poor job of publicizing its fee-dispute program through the media, at courthouses and in legal clinics. It gave the state a failing grade for failing to provide free legal help for clients to collect refunds when they overpay for legal help.
Information about how to fight a legal fee can be found through the Alabama State Bar's Web site (www.alabar.org) by clicking on the link to "Alternative Dispute Resolution." Or go directly to www.alabamaadr.org and click on the "fee dispute" link.
Forms for filing an official fee complaint can be found on the Web, or they can be requested via telephone. To schedule mediation for a legal fee dispute, call Rita Gray at 334-269-1515, ext. 305. On the Net HALT: www.halt.org Alabama fee dispute information: www.alabamaadr.org Alabama State Bar: www.alabar.org evelasco@bhamnews.com
© The Birmingham News, 2007
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