good afternoon judges i'm michael cox appearing on behalf of the appellant has a brand and may it please the court we are here to ask the court respectfully to reverse the lower court orders and judgment that night my client post petition interest at the state contract rate as opposed to the federal judgment interest rate which is de minimus how much money is the difference it's oh it's i think it's over one hundred thousand dollars it's quite some judge it's not it's not a minor amou charging lee is what is what is a charge against what race or yes there's a charge against well there's this this fund of money this forty percent or forty five percent of the fee that goes from the mind into the wee lot fun which comes in the bankruptcy estate and the charges nonetheless is against the law firm as i read the state statute the claim would be against the parties to the painful cases i'll call them and that's not what we have here the same point that judge cristol you know i think i'm struggling with how she fits into the statutory scheme help me how how do you marry the language of the statute with the fact that the entity from whom she's seeking the claim is not a party to the pain cases which is the basis of the work that she did it right i mean if you take a look at the organ supreme court decision and part of versus lesser mclane there wasn't made against the client the claim there was made against hard to see to my way of thinking any case or any reasoning that would allow us to make the statute apply in this context how does that organ case help you realistically because it it doesn't just apply to the client as a charging lino that it would follow the proceeds no matter where the proceeds go and this is a charging lien against the law firm for the work that she did for the law firm right  to relate to clients or parties to the fee the underlying dispute and in due respect i think you're looking at a little bit merrily and and that is because she's not working for just  client well she does and we would disagree with that because while you believe she had she had legal claims against the client and i can i'll tell you what they are if she went into court and sue the client is there any chance whatsoever she would get a and we'll opt for whatever reason is gone disappears or not asserting anything she could go and sue that client you're on express contract given the language in the retainer agreement that says i can give you an example of i'm going to try to answer your hypothetical but contractual obligation to pay the fee right and so is it her her disputes not with the client at all in this case isn't it would be if the client didn't pay that i know but that is just a question indicated we get to make up hypotheticals but you don't in this case this case what happened was all the money that the debt the client was required to pay to the attorneys was paid now we have a squabble among the attorneys correct correct why why does your trial why does your client have any rights against the client in this circumstance and jets that's what your school it was asking what how how could your help your client make any claim in this circumstance against the client the client has complied perfectly with their obligations or not if you can indeed they don't even know of the existence of your client and have never entered tenure greenman with her so they pay they pay the lawyers now the workers are fighting and you're saying nonetheless that somebody somebody that your sub contracting could buy chrysler could the clients who are for malpractise if he she screwed up sure in the case absolutely she had an attorney client relationship with them she wasn't a person behind the scenes in the law library doing a bunch of work somewhere she was at depositions with these clients she was representing them at hearings she was the main client contacts who was on the phone with them day in and day out when they saw the face of the firm it was mr brand who they saw they didn't see and they may have never seen william's lover or any of these other there and i could read that specific term to you that that notes we'll actual ensure that any client with respect to which i render services any client with respect to which i render services so she's running services for the client for a pain pump matter the short answer that is no but probably us going to make oregon law so that's why mask the problem with that is there isn't a whole lot in this area number one but i disagree with the notion that she doesn't have a direct you tourney client relationship with these clients she did have a direct dispute not with her and the client or with her and somebody that settle on the side with the client this is not somebody who is trying to circumvent the relationship with the client this is a b between employer and employee or how the impurity lean enters into it is just kind of parties other than the client that's correct but what i would say judge is when the money comes in hundred percent is there and the client has a say over what happens to it has to authorize where it goes at that point in time she does have a claim against the client and the client has a duty then for all the little money just coming in clients satisfied its obligations far as i can see it only satisfies obligations when it says since the forty percent out pay all the boy now we got the clients done right the clients then at that point no no nobody can make any claims against the client at that point that's correct and you know a you gotta understand here is that that didn't cut off the lien rights of all the other unnamed lawyers that were in this this case we recognize any lien rights there i've never seen anything that recognized lien rights attorneys when rights of that state court recognize that all these lawyers had claims to be paid including your client and she got paid those lawyers could have been paid unless they were secured creditors at the point in time when where where we talk about that lean the claims against the client because when the lien attaches when that money comes in and because that money is dispersed by the client and eliminates the claims to itself at that point  in that's a strangely and indeed how you get that out of your going to statute i thought that the the when services are rendered that the alien attaches if it attaches at all you're saying that's not true in this case it only attaches when the money comes in now i was probably in articulating what i said there judge what i meant to say you obviously as when you're a lawyer working on a continuing case you have a lien on the whole case itself at that point in time when the judgment from the beginning of the work on those proceeds a lot and i think you're assuming let's go back to the beginning when do you believe your clients only and if any attached to the pain pump clients or or or their lawsuit money was paid it was transformed from the lawsuit to you and it was continued there are now one those funds for it out then of course there's far less for the lien to be on you're saying that even though all the funds were gone and arguably there's nothing on which to lean can attach there still is only in one is that leon attached to it follows the proceeds into the wheelock trust the trust account ok so you're saying that because we lob still has some money that it's in there that's correct ok and i wanted to she have an alien money distributed to other lawyers that came out of the same forty percent arguably arguably but we did make that argument she tried to sue anybody else now has the money we knew where the money was and it was right there we knew who had it who had her share it was right there but it was money that came from the client i'm not i'm still i want to focus on is the attorneys charging leanness to of that that's a very different context that's not a dispute between cola lawyers or anything else that's making sure the kearney gets paid for what the attorney did for the client that's correct this is very different and the question w the court theatre task case from new york that had them almost the exact same circumstances we have and it's the closest case that exists anywhere in the country every case they've given you has different language or a different statute with a different concept let's hear it we're not talking about the obligation of the client we're talking about an obligation of another law firm and that's just not what i understand attorneys are going to be about and so i'll look at that case from new york but that's the problem i got ok i it's a very of facts factual circumstances we have here judge but what i want to say is that often but there are lots of circumstances where employers and employees or contractors independent contractors in contracting parties have relationships and there are other laws intended to speak to that the attorney's willing usually isn't one of them but that's the one you're trying to cite to us and that's ok back and that's because why should it be applied make up hot it's still here to be enforced against you and that's what was my question can you cite us any case in which your client paid every penny to the lawyers that the client was supposed to and the attorneys lean statute was applied in terms of dividing up the proceeds among  only the cascades i referred to but judge i would say there's no case on the other side either there's not a single piece of authority says it doesn't go this way and i think it's important to look at potter and i understand it's a different factual circumstance but they're  the proceeds it creates the judgment in the of itself against the defendant in that case so it's not just limited to the party and i see my time's run out so thank you judge thank you that what people are trying to do what attorneys are trying to do when they want to use an attorney's lawsuit to shoehorn in a contract dispute or having another attorney is what they're really trying to do is an assert a lien against the other attorney and there's no such clear that attorneys lean is extremely serious not only can you go against the client themselves you can go and see other side in the lawsuit and so the idea that somehow that this lean in sort of a free floating idea and that once the client even wants t client pays any attorney of record then the leanest discharged so as all the attorney so i wasn't able to find all of the pleadings from the underline of a lot of cases and figure out exactly who would be an attorney of record but my understanding is that there would not been any case in which mr brand appeared on her own as on affiliated with williams love and so paying williams love would have discharged the lien in my view given what you just said let's just say hypothetically that impossible in this case because the way the entire fee structure between williams love and brand was so incredibly different than the fee structure between brand and i'm sorry between williams live and its clients that there is no way for an theory seems to be that the libyan follows the fund and it really doesn't matter which of the attorneys is involved my question is would it if they are correct and would williams love of had a lien against her it's such a bi the seven seventy four five this phrase probably because no one for see this scenario in which a lawyer who wasn't covered by the fee agreement and did not have any obligation to be paid under the fee agreement would be able to effect the lien as to those who did have an obligation happening so it's hard cause the only case that they view is supporting them i don't believe does support and it's contradicted by you how much is much more on point and is actually new york state law so i guess i'm a keep returning to the question attorney before the attorney has a lien attaching the client's property that's just fundamental to the concept of a lien as discussed in potter and fair and and it's fundamental to an attorney is lien specifically under the statute and how it's evolved and how it's recognized in every other it's clear from there were five wreaths at this point they're just relying on to bankruptcy court decisions out of new york they don't even squarely address the issue and don't even talk about the fact that there's a more recent bankruptcy decision court out of new york that acknowledges the majority rule under  two very specific issues in this case and on both of them we have thoughtful and complete decisions from both the bankruptcy judges paris and the search court through chief judge and both of these issues are controlled by existing ninth circuit precedent including one case which i didn't talk about but i think very very brief we keep talking about the client having paid this lien which i think kind of ignores the facts of the bit about how this works because what happened in this case is that my proceeds come into we launched trust account as we satisfy that because in this case there was no me required did pay once the money is in the trust account what does a client have to do with it what does the purpose of the statute have to do with what you're talking about  the client and somehow responsible for the relationships among the lawyers and could be held accountable for them and i why it is off the hook you wouldn't dare sue the client for what your client is now we did and i think you're right that once the client is puts the amongst themselves that really shouldn't be the client's problem i agree with that and i think that that when the money is in the trust account the lawyers have an obligation to that client to make sure it's distributed correctly but if that lawyer commits malpractise i don't think in the real world that that doesn't mean you have a doesn't you waive some claim against the client if the client is involved then the lawyers knavery in taking the money to itself or someone else and here we have this navy but but what i wanted to make a point of is we have to find a very somewhere yeah but you know that the client has paid the lawyers the client here never made a decision that i'm paying this money to d c or he the money i was just sitting in the trust account had been distributed or paid any so there had been an act of the client paying the lawyers when she said i'm  my share out of this fund here which years tears the problem we're having and i guess maybe there's doesn't bear repeating but i'm doing it anyway we don't have any doubt your client your client has a claim against the money the question is lien continues thereafter that's that's my difficulty and my answer would be i respectfully disagree that the lien is only intended to protect the lawyer against the client because the lien is a charging lien that follows outside the client outside of other things and account isn't a call as now the client everything the client agreed to do yes but i think that there could be a claim where the client is sued and you say here's money sit in this trust that we need a declaration against  quiet as being paid out to all the right lawyers and the client just can't wash its hands by saying i'm giving it to a lawyer when i know i was represented by a b c and d so there are conceivably could be a case so i don't want to say it's one hundred percent but i would think in most circumstances the client's got the money they're the highest and what's supposed to do they're supposed to be protected by we lobby and distributing the money correctly it's hard for us to run we're not going to run in the courts to the client we know that we didn't do that here it's just the pragmatic nature