Vulnerable fire victims, many of whom are struggling to find food, housing and some sense of normalcy, might be tempted to sign contracts with unscrupulous lawyers or even nonlawyers who illegally offer legal services.
The State Bar of California, which regulates lawyers in the Golden State, said that there is no need to hire an attorney immediately. Major fire disasters like this have often taken years to resolve in court.
"The State Bar urges the public not to sign any legal agreements in haste, and to be particularly wary of any claims that immediate payment of legal fees or other costs are necessary to protect legal rights or remedies," the agency said in a public announcement. "There is time for fire victims to ensure they are getting the best legal services possible for them and their families."
After previous disasters, the agency published pamphlets warning consumers that attorneys are prohibited from soliciting clients at disaster scenes or at hospitals. They also can't send messages to prospective clients that aren't clearly labeled as advertisements.
The agency's top prosecutor, Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona, told Law360 last week that consumers should be wary of attorneys or nonattorneys who pressure them to sign retainer agreements.
Many legitimate law firms are holding town hall meetings to inform fire victims of their rights, help them fill out insurance claims, and update them on pending litigation. But the meetings can't be sales pitches, he said.
"Simply providing information is OK, but if it kind of bridges over into a solicitation of a particular person, then it potentially would run afoul of these rules," Cardona said.
Cardona added that fire victims should make sure to get the name and bar number of anyone who approaches them to offer legal services. That information can be used to look them up on the State Bar of California's website to make sure that they are, in fact, an attorney, Cardona said.
"Is what they're being offered too good to be true?" he said.
Alternatively, if a legal services provider asks disaster victims for up-front payment, that's another sign that something might be awry. Most plaintiffs' attorneys use a contingency fee model, taking a percentage of their clients' awards at the end of a case rather than any money at the beginning.
Cardona said that anyone who believes they were lied to or improperly solicited by an attorney — or a nonlawyer offering legal services — can submit a complaint through the State Bar of California's website.
Robert Simon, owner of the plaintiff's firm Simon Law Group in Torrance, California, said his firm does not handle fire cases, but he has rallied more than 100 lawyers to donate their time to help with legal triage for fire victims.
"In my opinion, nobody should be taking a single dollar for all of this pre-litigation stuff, to fill out claim forms, telling them the analysis," Simon said.
He said consumers should not sign up with a firm merely because it is a national or well-known firm with aggressive social media and advertising campaigns. And they certainly should avoid legal advertisers, which often merely aggregate cases and sell them to national law firms.
"You have all of these advertisers out-of-state that are having people fill out forms, and then they're going to shop it to those national firms," Simon said. "Well, guess what? These people are going to be treated like literally widgets rather than human beings."
If fire victims have a local lawyer who they already know and trust, that would be a good place to start, Simon said. The familiar lawyer could help with solving a lot of the initial problems, such as finding housing, and then connect the client with a fire litigation specialist, who would then split the attorney's fees, he said.
And as the litigation progresses, the trusted lawyer would serve as a point of contact for the fire victim.
"Those are the folks that you need," Simon said.
Majed Nachawati, founding partner of the Dallas-based Nachawati Law Group, has been holding town halls meetings for victims of the Eaton Fire. The blaze has destroyed more than 5,700 structures, many of which were in Altadena, a community just northeast of Los Angeles.
Nachawati cautioned legal consumers against signing up with firms that lack experience with wildfires, mass torts or bankruptcy court, where many mass tort defendants ultimately end up. And he said he was skeptical of firms that file lawsuits before a thorough investigation. For instance, lawsuits over the Palisades Fire may be premature, as the cause of the blaze has not yet been determined.
And clients should not sign retainer agreements that are unclear about fees, or would pay attorneys more than 20% to 33% of a pretrial settlement, he said. However, that percentage may climb higher in cases that are extensively litigated or go to trial.
"We have an internal rule that, if the client receives, net, less than what we're supposed to make under the attorney's fee calculation, we cut our fee," Nachawati said. "There are firms out there, the predatory firms, that wouldn't do that."
Other plaintiffs' lawyers told Law360 that reputable attorneys should not try to claim a share of fire victims' insurance payouts. Attorneys' fees should be calculated based on the amount they obtain for their clients beyond their insurance policies, though this may not apply if the client has to retain an attorney to sue an insurer for a bad-faith claim denial, they said.
Additionally, they cautioned clients from signing anything that grants an attorney broad, unilateral discretion over case costs. This could lead to large and unexpected expenses in the end. In the same vein, lawyers who must take out loans or credit to cover case costs should not require clients to pay their interest, they said.
And numerous consumer law organizations, such as Consumer Attorneys of California and the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, forbid members from including mandatory, pre-dispute binding arbitration clauses in their retainer agreements. This ensures that clients have access to the justice system in case of a dispute with their attorneys.
--Editing by Nicole Bleier.
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