Mark A. Woodbury

Mark Woodbury

Linda, I'm sorry you had a negative experience working with me. I should note at the outset that you did not hire me, your daughter did. You were not my client. Responding to some of your specific complaints: I reviewed my emails and I can see that I sent you a copy of both the signed mediation agreement and the Utah court's final order in the case on February 11, 2021. You responded by saying "Thanks Mark for your two docs and reply." As far as I can tell, these are all the final documents that there are in the case. There are no other documents to send. Regarding the payment of attorney fees, I think there may be some confusion. Again, I reviewed my records. Your daughter paid me $2,000 as a retainer on July 28, 2020. The case turned out to be much more complicated than I originally anticipated, and between the time I was hired and the time the case settled, I incurred more than $34,000 in attorney fees, representing hundreds of hours of time that I spent on the case. I never received any more money from you or your daughter, nor did I withdraw from the case until we had reached a settlement with the other side. I continued to represent your daughter in a very difficult and time consuming case because I felt bad and wanted to help, hoping that I would get paid when the case was finished. I know that the settlement agreement was not everything that we had hoped it would be, and that you and your daughter were disappointed with some of the concessions that we had to make. However, I stand by the final agreement as the best we could do under the circumstances. We lost several intermediate motions in front of our judge, and my professional opinion was that he was not favorably disposed towards our position in the case, in part because of certain actions that you took prior to hiring me, and for which your daughter was not responsible. Regardless of why the judge was skeptical of our position, all indications were that we would lose if we pushed the case to trial. At mediation, we had to give up a lot, but we also secured several very important concessions from the other side, including, as you noted, that your daughter would not be responsible for her own attorney fees. This was not the only thing we got out of the settlement, but the agreement was private and I have no wish to violate your daughter's privacy by being specific in a public forum (beyond the issues that you already raised). The parties designated to pay my fees sent me a check for the amount I had incurred (as you say, just under $35,000). I then sent a check to your daughter for the $2,000 that she had initially paid me, and which was the only amount she had paid during my entire representation of her. I received the initial funds on May 13. I sent the check to your daughter on May 17, and she cashed it on May 28. So, by my records, your daughter paid me $2,000, I did $34,000 worth of work, and then I returned her $2,000. I returned everything that she paid me. I think the confusion arises because, as you know, there was another part of your daughter's case. She hired several different attorneys in Arizona, because there was large portion of the case that occurred in Arizona; in fact, the case is currently being administered by the Arizona courts. As I previously explained, the mediation agreement stipulated that the fees she paid to her Arizona attorneys would be reimbursed to her by another party to the case. I also told you that, once the case was transferred to Arizona, I could not do anything more to assist. I am not licensed to practice law in Arizona. I am very surprised that there have been issues with getting the attorney fees reimbursed from her Arizona attorneys. There was no such issue with me. I have no idea what may be happening there, but it is not something I know anything about or can do anything about. As I told you, that is something she will have to take up with the attorneys that she hired there.