Should i be threatened by my attorney ? basithamza@yahoo.com

It is difficult to say what happened here without more details. Your lawyer may have failed to take into account a right some health service provider had to be reimbursed for medical bills that were paid. Without seeing the settlment papers, I cannot say what happened.

It is also possible that your lawyer did something bad to you although that is unlikely.

One way or the other, the best way to find out is to ask the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois to investigate the matter. Assuming your attorney did nothing wrong, she will be able to send all the paperwork she has to be reviewed along with an explanation. The lawyer for the Commission will go over it carefully and determine if something was done that was fraudulent. If that is the case, the A.R.D.C. lawyer will bring charges against your lawyer, and a special trust fund is available to you for compensation.

You can apply for compensation from this fund if you can prove that your lawyer cheated you. But it is a complicated process. The first step in any case is to go to the Disciplinary Commission right away. They are located at One Prudential Plaza in Chicago, and you can look them up on the Internet at www.iardc.org.

Any lawyer reading your letter would recommend the same thing. In fact, if a lawyer were to see your situation and fail to recommend you go to A.R.D.C., he or she would be subject to being punished for failing to do so under the doctrine of the case of In Re Himmel. I am only doing what is morally right here, and it is what I would expect any lawyer to do.

Remember, A.R.D.C. is not going to collect money for you. That is not the job of the Commission. They are only there to discipline lawyers who are dishonest or who have cheated people. If it turns out you were cheated, you are going to have to apply for benefits out of the trust fund to compensate the victims of dishonest lawyers. That's a whole separate problem.


Donald Nathan
www.donaldnathanlaw.com

Mr. Nathan is correct - it's hard to say what exactly happened from your facts. You should certainly ask your attorney to explain what happened, in detail. If she is unable or unwilling to, the ARDC can certainly get to the bottom of the situation. Personally, I think that if the attorney missed a lien on your case, that mistake should sit with the attorney, not you.

Disclaimer: This answer is provided as a public service and as a general response to a general question, it is not meant, and should not be relied upon as specific legal advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship.