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Personal injury attorney not releasing funds from settled portion of o
kamijune001
Posts: 1
We have been dealing with a personal injury lawsuit for about two years. The accident occurred in CA and we reside in another state, so we are dealing with our attorney all long distance. The case has been complicated, mainly due to an inattentive attorney from the start, whom we fired. We retained our current attorney not too long ago and the case against the defendants insurance company has been resolved and funds have been sent to our attorney. Here is where it becomes tricky. The funds for my settlement have been sent to us, the attorney is holding the funds from my husband's portion of the settlement until a settlement is reached with our insurance company (the defendant was an underinsured driver, we had underisured driver coverage). Our attorney claims he cannot release these funds because he will more than likely need to spend the money on litigating the case against our insurance company..and it just does not make sense to me. In our eyes, the case against the defendant is closed (and in the courts eyes) I don't see why the funds cannot be released, but my attorney alleges this is normal practice in personal injury law. Anyone have any experience with a situation similar to this? Thanks.
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I suggest calling the state bar of California and ask for the "Dispute Resolution Department". Each state bar has one of these departments, sometimes with a slightly different name but they will know what you mean. Tell them that your Attorney is holding your settlement $ and you have not hired him/her for any secondary issue's in this case. This is free. Most of the time the people who work in this department are lawyers.
Tell them that you don't understand why this lawyer is holding your money and that you want some help resolving it, or else you will need to file a complaint. They may help resolve it by calling your lawyer or they might give you advice about how to address it directly.
Lawyers do not like having complaints on record. Anyone looking to hire a lawyer can look them up and see if they have any.
I hope this is helpful.