Anita Gumm

Anita Gumm

1. The retainer for legal services was not set at a flat fee. My normal retainer for filing a motion is $5,000 but the client asked me to take $3,500 as a favor to her, which I agreed to take less. I explained to her if my legal charges went over the retainer amount of $3,500, I would be asking her for additional retainer funds, which was also stated in her retainer agreement. She understood and agreed and signed the retainer agreement for my legal services after reviewing it for 5 days and asking questions about it. I informed her since she had limited funds I would limit my legal work to preparing a short discovery request in order to ascertain husband’s income and filing a motion for spousal support and attorney fees only since she informed me her husband was working and she believed he had additional income. 2. When I learned that her husband was not working and had no income for the past 3 years, I advised her that spousal support would likely be denied and her request for reimbursement of attorney fees also. I informed her she made more money than her husband on unemployment and she could get hit with attorney fees herself by the court. I advised her to cut her losses for now and perhaps wait to see if he does get work later. 3. I had actually reviewed the last 3 years of her husband’s tax returns with the client. I told her, her husband showed no income. 4. The client refused to listen to any of my legal advice. The client refused to return my phone calls, as she did not want to be charged for phone calls. I told I did not always charge her for phone calls and would tell her when I called her if I would charge for this particular call because I needed to speak to her regarding her case. She would not return my calls anyway and did not want to hear what I had to say about her case. 5. I asked her to sign a substitution of attorney form for failure to cooperate and she refused to relieve me as her lawyer. She continued not to cooperate so I filed a motion to be relieved as her attorney of record due to the breakdown of the attorney client relationship, which I told her about and sent a copy to her. 6. Since the client wanted me to remain her attorney, I let her know all of her retainer funds were gone, and under her retainer agreement, she would need to pay additional retainer funds to keep me on the case and appear in Court to argue on her behalf. Only when I asked her for reasonable additional attorney fees did she state she wanted to terminate me as her attorney but she still refuses to sign a substitution of attorney. 7. All of her legal fees charged were reasonable, fair, itemized, valid, and explained to her when asked. The client is sent all of her billing to review on a monthly regular basis, all of her documentation, all of the discovery responses but she still refused to sign a substitution of attorney form. She states she does not have anything from me but that’s not true. She does not understand the bill charges, and that the retainer she signed is an hourly fee charge with a deposit paid up front and not a flat fee charge for legal services. 8. I informed her I was still her attorney of record in the eyes of the court until she signed the substitution of attorney if she wanted to represent herself. The client said she wanted to argue to the judge about getting spousal support and attorney fees. I told her this was fine but she had to sign the substitution of attorney form first, she still refuses. I will have to appear in court because the client has still not signed the substitution of attorney form as of the date of writing this response and still won’t cooperate. 9. All of the client’s legal fees charged were appropriately earned and reasonable.