appellant with respect to this appeal from two orders of the trial court with respect to attorney's fees i think you must be about eight or nine through your skin's and yes yes hopefully the last  so this case of the dispute over your fees i don't think so in any event the case settled on november fifth which was about six five to six my client that had the problem with the settlement that was announced in court on november fifth of two thousand and twelve i think it was the defendants who tried to inject several other provisions which my client was not willing to do ultimately the fact that my client's position was the correct one was borne out by the fact that number one a year later the trial court simply entered judgment with all of those same terms that my client had agreed to in open court and secondly on a on the finish will appeal duty to the client in this case the agreement that the parties had was that there was going to be twenty five thousand dollars to prepare for trial and twenty five thousand dollars to settle a case this is a matter of honorable so that it was against her policy that's correct and then paradoxically what she what they bargained for which would have been a fee of at the most fifty thousand dollars got turned into triple that at over one hundred fifty thousand  the decision of the lower court which is it's strange that we're trying to enforce our disciplinary rules by saying no no no you're not going to get this fifty thousand dollars even though that's what right the disciplinary rules are separate and distinct however to me it is very paradoxical that they could she could end up with three times the fee i think that the record paradox it sounds like a m irony and any legal ever the even i didn't mar position is that the court misinterpreted the retain the retainer agreement your honor and that's a matter of law that your honors are free to address the novo the record is replete with this twenty five thousand for one part twenty five thousand for the other part fifty thousand donald total in several instances she makes clear again she meaning ms ready makes clear in a letter to predecessor counsel four days after the settlement that she doesn't have a contingency fee agreement and yet there is one in the retainer agreement so and also any ambiguity of course would have to be construed against the attorney she then in joint exhibit one  hyphenated phrase somehow this turns into a triple pay day for her and that i think is a problem i also want to direct the courts right i'm sorry like us to rewrite the agreement i would like you to the fact it is refundable well i think yes that's what i'm asking i'm saying that it should be blue pencil doubt that the understanding of the parties is what should govern here and it was again additional proof that joint exhibit one fifty an affidavit whose provenance is a little uncertain i'm not sure if i'm as ready prepared that or if my client prepared that but that was generated because the defendants here are central argument and somehow that the retainer agreement really should control as far as the eye can turn to the quantum murder argument the question really is what was the reasonable value of those services and in this case the bulk of the work was done in the thirty six days between her notice appearance and the settlement the fact that it when we look at the records and my arguments are more clearly spelled out in the paperwork but there was duplicative billing there was  submitted if you were you don't proceed with a judgment based on the state right now and again with respect to those matters for mr fitzgerald and ms richmond there was what looks to us to be double billing in the sense that two people were sent for conferences two people were sent for depositions to people were preparing for things which was not necessary they didn't split the the questioning of anything as far as i understand it there should there was no reason for two people to be staffing this matter and for that reason i was suggest that a thirty percent reduction would have been more appropriate rather than a ten percent i'm not looking for a fifty percent reduction and in new york kuperman is nicotine agreement that can that contains any nonrefundable retainer what is void is it the is it the nonrefundable ity clause who is it the entire country i think it's the nonrefundable nature of the retainer and what what the court could do is say your your authority for that to i know that's your argument right just asking what the authority is for it is that it's the the authority is the  that ambiguity in a retainer agreement is construed against the drafter and certainly against the attorney is no ambiguity here it's a perfectly clear it perfectly clear contract it has and in in legal terms well it's not perfectly clear when you consider the other us sources that confirm that she was looking for twenty five thousand for this and twenty five thousand for that which was both my client's understanding as outlined in that affidavit and her understanding as she put forth in her certification  theory that there should be a premium in this case for what ms ready won through thus increasing that were to one hundred seventy three thousand one hundred dollars before i go further but the judge walker i'd like to approach just to address kuperman momentarily other court of appeals in that case said that eight nonrefundable retainer agreement is not enforceable that is the entire agreement is not enforceable but in the in superman the court of appeals went on to sa where is the equity that a layman signs an agreement with a lawyer which limits him exposure to two attorney fees and a lawyer makes a mistake that something that is improper and should know is improper and as a result of that the lawyer gets three times would the lawyer could have will be available to the practicing attorney in other words what did the attorney earn by her efforts man not to the court that the first department less than a month ago in gonzales v starch rolled or referred  in the best position to look at the case and then make a ruling as to what was actually earned and he has to take into consideration a number of factors all of which i have looked at reviewed in the brief most important of which i believe is what was  the attorney in this case with this panel looking on you can see that for thema writing my client accomplished what four magistrate judges four prior attorneys and a professional mediator over ten years of work were unable to accomplish even if your client worked a miracle the fact is that dr cole hoover entered into this with the understanding that her attorney's fees would be capped at fifty thousand dollars and you're really saying that your you know of that because that was because that was an ethical on your client's part act call hoover couldn't possibly have known when with the other would get it was an ethical in your client refundable retainer of fifty thousand dollars twenty five thousand dollars to prepare for trial and twenty five thousand dollars to so many and then went on to say plus one third of any recovery there's no question that this is an on in forcible agreement however wasn't that she had a he gave you a fifty thousand dollars if you divide up the agreement which i submit you can take some terms and accept them in other terms you cannot demand point up to the court that my client moved the do strick corp blow to blue pencil the agreement to strike the offending language and judge mccarthy turned her down but you can't just take some terms and apply it moreover if you look at these terms if it was twenty five thousand dollars to prepare for trial twenty five thousand dollars to settlement what happens if you don't get a solomon and you go to trial is the attorney then not to work any further because she didn't agree to do anything but prepare for trial and to draft the agreement which is why your honor the court properly set aside the agreement under kuperman that had the offensive language in it was ready i apologize to the court for having done the twenty five thousand and twenty five thousand plus one third of any recovery yes your honor which by the way your honor is the same sort of got two thirds i believe and that's what judge mccarthy a looked at in the way he had figured all of the fees involved dr hoover's done very well by what miss rody brought about the theory under kuperman is that we set aside these  as an enforceable because you do not want to chill the ability of a client to fire an attorney and hire a new attorney and it's important new york policy on that basis this does not apply to the point of in this case who fired m judge one of the judges remarks are heard on the record saying there would be cruel and unusual punishment to send this case back again and the reason is it's been going on for ten years taking up a lot of valuable court time and what you know the supreme court in the purdue case said that enhanced minova lodestar the if that is the presumptively reasonable fee can be appropriate at times and in this case we have married an attorney with  outstanding abilities to bring parties together and it's based on a track record in this case that went over ten years where so many people were unable to resolve the case thank you your honor richmond good morning may it please the court i am here on behalf of both myself and mr fitzgerald the district court reduced our fees by ten percent in response to dr cole hoover's initial argument that our fee should be reduced by seventy five percent they are now moving for a thirty percent reduction which is more to twenty percent over what the district court reduced us by the district court did not abuse its just discretion or honor judge  mccarthy's decision discusses our work dr cooper sophistication the risk we faced we submit that there was no error factor law in judge mccarthy's decision and i'm here to answer questions if the court has any i would hope that the court would looked at certain errors he looked at the fact that there were two lawyers and he looked at the amount of the complexity and said he wasn't going to go through it piece by would be six months after ms reddy who you are eight now we were two there was there was medical i handled it from two thousand to two thousand and six mr fitzgerald been representing dr cooper and other things we had it from two thousand not two thousands yet two thousand and six we had a number two mr fitzgerald and i together were number two then there was mr prendergast who took it we essentially did discovery mr took it through summary judgment and then ms reddy she fired mr pendergrast of a month or two before trial i think and then mr or ms ready and then there she hired other another large firm in buffalo to oppose our various things and what i was going to say is that the motion that was brought contains significant comparisons of our work he the where the work is doubled judge mccarthy essentially referred to other case law and looked at our looked at our records there was no specific i'm looking at this some looking at that i'm looking at the other thing like thank you thank you your honors