Judge Allows Lawyer to Collect $1M Fee Despite Law License Snafu
A Florida judge has ruled that a solo practitioner should be able to collect a $1 million fee for helping a wealthy widow obtain a probate settlement of more than $31 million, even though the lawyer wasn’t authorized to practice in the state.
Despite the favorable ruling, solo William West of Winston-Salem, N.C., still faces the difficult problem of collecting the money from the widow, the Daily Business Review reports.
Judge Jeffrey Winikoff of Palm Beach County noted in an order that West still had not gotten his paperwork approved to practice in Florida at the time the settlement was approved on behalf of widow Carla Morrison.
But Winikoff ruled that West deserved the fee for protecting Morrison’s financial interests and obtaining “an excellent result.” Morrison, on the other hand, “behaved despicably,” the judge said. Morrison abruptly fired West on the day the settlement was to be approved, telling her new lawyer that she did so to avoid paying the fee, Winikoff wrote. Morrison had contacted West in North Carolina to represent her, but then cited his lack of a Florida license in her efforts to void the fee agreement.
The next question in the case may be where the $1 million fee will come from. West’s lawyer, Gerald Richman, said Morrison bought a diamond bracelet with $250,000 and may have spent all of the money. Richman said Morrison’s new law firm, Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, was supposed to hold the money in a trust account until the fee dispute was resolved, but it returned the money to Morrison by mistake. Morrison’s other assets may be protected from attachment, he said.
“Obviously we’re going to look at the Edwards Angell firm” to try and collect the money, Richman told the Daily Business Review.
