Wilkes & McHugh Agrees to Pay $4 million Settlement in Overcharging Clients Case
The Memphis Commercial Appeal is reporting that the national plaintiffs nursing home litigation firm Wilkes & McHugh has agreed to pay $4 million to settle a class action alleging that the firm overcharged clients in Tennessee. Here is the article.
The suit alleged that the firm overcharged clients with expenses, such as for lawyers flying to Tennessee from other states on private jets to work on their cases. Wilkes & McHugh maintained that it did nothing wrong. The settlement calls for payments ranging from $5,200 to $110,000 per client.
The lead plaintiffs' attorney in the case was Frank Watson III of Memphis.
For many years lawyers have been speculating as to whether there could be a boom in cases against law firms for overcharging clients. There does appear to be recent growth in this area.
Earlier this year a suit was filed against prominent New York firm Chadbourne & Parke alleging that the firm overcharged for legal research fees. In September professional wrestler Hulk Hogan announced a lawsuit against his former attorneys alleging that they overcharged him by over $1 million. In addition, in April a Kentucky jury convicted fen phen lawyers of stealing millions from their clients.
Clients are entitled to an itemization of fees and expenses charged by their attorneys in a case. Unscrupulous defense attorneys can overcharge in the amount of hours billed and unfairly run up expenses. Unscrupulous plaintiff lawyers are more likely to just unfairly charge the client with expenses, since a contingency fee is usually transparent.
Clients who have concerns in this area should request an itemization that specifically lists the fees and expenses charged by the law firm. Pretty much all businesses, including law firms of all sizes, use accounting software that can easily generate reports that will show the amount of each item charged to a matter. If a law firm refuses, the client should file a complaint with the state bar and seek assistance from another attorney.
Hello Philip, how about suits filed for attorneys that do nothing about your case, waste "precious time" and stall about the work they are doing. Then, after a years time, you find out they are basically broke, have no legal assistant or secretary, possibly about to be convicted on felony charges and for months have been sitting around doing nothing. What can you do about this????
You can always fire your attorney and hire another one.
what about if you have attorney that will always tell you that your case may never settle and just don't care to talk to you and you can't change attorney because you have 12 years invested in the case? but yet your'e getting your benefits yet she tells me the school board have no money to settle and is not intrested in settling is there lawyers you can hire to investigate others attorneys? i have aready contacted the bar and they did nothing. she took all my money that was in my account and used it. i'm just puzzled. who investigate attorneys when a client feel that something is wrong?
The method to report misconduct by a lawyer is to file a formal complaint with the Mississippi Bar. You can also consult another lawyer to investigate a possible legal malpractice action.