Walter James Sawicki

I retained Mr Sawicki only two days ago. I have been fighting the West Hollywood Sheriffs on a bunch of bogus charges and calling them on their bluff. Walter is now my 4th Lawyer i have had to retain on this case because none of the lawyers so far have given adequate if any counsel after paying each ...one thousands of dollars. Walter Sawicki knew my circumstances and was willing to take my case. He rushed me into getting a bunch of info that was necessary for a continuance with the Beverly Hills Court House and briefly went over his fee agreement and demanded a check of $5,000 only to cover the case up to the filing of the continuance. He also very briefly gave me the numbers for the rest of the trial which were very high from my viewpoint from retaining 3 previous lawyers and my shopping around so often for a good attorney. $10,000 for the continuance period if granted (if not granted and trial had to start on Monday, 4 days from now I would not have to pay this amount), and then $3000 a day for every day in trial. I tried negotiating him down in price but he refused and I was in a bind. He finished my continuance motion in a day and one half. He had been paid $5000 for that day and one half. I went to his office to sign the declaration page and he had my receipt for the first $5000 finished. He had planned on filing the declaration that morning but suddenly threw at me a curve ball. When I went to his office to sign the declaration page and to drop off my files from which I had picked up in Brentwood ( I live in Los Feliz), he also had a "Representation and Fee Agreement" waiting for me. He had also e-mailed me this document sometime in the middle of the night that same morning. He had changed and added to his fee agreement and he had already deposited my $5000 into his bank account. I was in agreement with everything we had discussed, still not happy about his comparatively exorbitant fees, except this new rule he imposed which is section 7 in his fee agreement. He was now telling me that in addition to the $5000, the $10,000 and the daily rate of trial at $3,000 a day to cover trial, i was to cover all his little costs including copy fees, mileage, postage, absolutely every nit picky thing he could throw in there. So i decided to speak up and talk to him about that and i told him none of the other lawyers had done that and with his fees being so high and either equal to or higher than the several lawyers that had AVVO Scores of 9.8 or higher or very respected seasoned lawyers in the community , I asked him to drop that one little clause in the contract since it was brought up after the fact and it would be a minimal amount anyways. I let him know that as a client , after paying those comparatively higher fees already, to get all these little bills in the mail would be terribly annoying to me and I would guess any client for that matter. Walter Sawicki once again refused to listen to my little bit of reason and refused to drop that clause in the fee agreement and have me pay them because as he put in his own words "Well, I don't want to get stuck paying for them". I was amazed by his behavior and I was beginning to really stress out since that declaration needed to be filed that day and it was already paid for. I told him I needed to take a walk because I really needed to think about things, leaving my files at his office. He tried calling me soon after i left but was unable to get to the phone in time. I was hoping maybe he reconsidered so I listened to his message once I had gotten home and only to make me more stressed out and furious at him, he tells me in the message "you forgot your files, please come back and get them because I don't want them". I remained home furious, scared, stressed, not knowing what to do at this point and I am writing this a few hours later not knowing if he ever bothered to file the motion for continuance today.