Pardon Me for Being Unconsciously Misogynistic!

I realized that I may have been unconsciously misogynistic in my blog by not discussing any women.  I am "woking" up and have a story to try to even the score, although the number of instances about female lawyers seems to pale in comparison to thier male counterparts.  Hopefully, that will change.

A middle-aged woman, having been laid off from her thirty-year secretarial position with McDonnell Douglas, engaged someone I’ll call SM to represent her in a potential employment-discrimination suit against her former employer.  The contingent-fee agreement provided, in pertinent part, as follows:

SM will represent the undersigned in the above matter upon payment of $600.00 non-refundable fee retainer, plus the sum of 35% of all funds received (or the fair market value of non- monetary items) prior to the date of the trial or other hearing is to begin;  40% of all amounts (or the fair market value of non-monetary items) received after the trial hearing date;  and 45% of all amounts (or the fair market value of non-monetary items) received after the trial or hearing has ended, whether or not counsel undertakes to handle the appeal.

SM filed suit against McDonnell Douglas in 1992, but before any depositions were taken, the parties settled.  The former employer paid $27,500 in settlement and the client was back at McDonnell Douglas, earning the same wages and receiving benefits.   SM retained $9,625 of the settlement as her fee.  

Later, SM made an additional demand – that [the client] forward 35% of her salary and benefits, including her pension, that were to be earned forever – in satisfaction of SM’s claimed contingent fee.  In 1998, SM sued her former client and, after six years of litigation, was denied further recovery on her contract, but the trial court awarded $33,700 in quantum meruit. The parties appealed, and the Appellate Court noted:

"This dispute has had, in the understated observation of the trial judge, 'a torturous history.'  He calculated the weight of the trial-court file at forty-eight pounds.  Now with an appeal and cross-appeal, that weight may have increased but, since appellate judges travel in packs, there is at least help with the heavy lifting.  However, at day's end, and we fervently hope dusk is drawing nigh, there is but a single question that need be answered:  Is SM entitled to additional legal fees from her former client, [name redacted]?  We hold that she is not."

The judgment in quantum meruit was reversed on appeal, and cannot stand because in the words of the Court of Appeals:

"…there is an express contract between the parties that completely governed liability for legal fees for indivisibly rendered legal services.  Where an express contingent-fee agreement exists between attorney and client, the attorney's recovery of fees must lie on the contract."

Or, more simply put, if it was SM’s intent to have her client surrender 35% to 45% of all future earnings until the welcome hand of death freed her from this servitude, the contract needed to say as much.  (The Court of Appeals did not even reach the issue of unconscionability of such a contract.)

The same SM had sued a former client previously, and the same Court of Appeals judge noted SM’s failures to follow rules:

“Needless to say, there is nothing concise about plaintiff's legal reasoning, and nothing summary about her explanations.  For example, her complaint as to Hirschfeld leaves us mystified. 

Apparently, plaintiff is claiming the trial court erred in a ruling because Hirschfeld waived a defense.  What the ruling was and what the defense was remains a mystery.

"Plaintiff's egregious violations of Rule 84.04(d) preserve nothing for our review, requiring our dismissal of her appeal.  Although sometimes courts have been reluctant to punish innocent parties for the shortcomings of appellate counsel here we have no such hesitancy where the appellate counsel herself is the party that will suffer the sanction. 

Plaintiff's disregard of appellate rules has previously been noted in Clear v. Missouri Coordinating Bd. for Higher Educ. (and several other cases). Searching the record here to ascertain the gravamina of plaintiff's claims of error would be like searching for needles in a haystack."

In the years since these two cases, SM has filed other cases in which the pleadings resembled those described by the aforementioned Court of Appeals.  She, though, remains in practice and has a law license in good standing.