Opinion ID: 1463399
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Client's Right to Withdraw a Petition for Fee Arbitration

Text: Maine Bar Rule 3.3(c) provides: A lawyer admitted to practice in this State shall submit, upon the request of his client, the resolution of any fee dispute in accordance with Rule 9. Under Maine Bar Rule 9(g)(3), [1] members of the Board's fee arbitration panels have all the powers and duties vested in neutral arbitrators under Maine's version of the Uniform Arbitration Act, 14 M.R.S.A. ch. 706 (§§ 5927-5949) (1980). The Act provides that a written agreement to submit a controversy to arbitration is irrevocable: if one party to the agreement subsequently refuses to arbitrate, on request of the other party a court shall order the recalcitrant party to proceed with arbitration. 14 M.R. S.A. § 5928. In effect, appellant would have us treat the client's submission of a written petition to the Board for fee arbitration as if it were the equivalent of the execution of a written contract to arbitrate, with the consequence of irrevocability. The result would be as if, on admission to practice in Maine, every lawyer were to execute a written offer to any future client to arbitrate a fee dispute, which offer any particular client could accept in writing by filing with the Board a petition for arbitration. On the basis of this concept, Nisbet argues from 14 M.R. S.A. § 5928 that Faunce's petition for fee arbitration was irrevocable and that the Board should not have permitted it to be withdrawn. We reject the argument for reasons hereinafter set forth. In general, parties to a dispute cannot be compelled to submit their controversy to arbitration unless they have manifested in writing a contractual intent to be bound to do so. If the agreement does not take the form of a single signed document, it must be contained in writings exchanged between the parties. Maine Cent. R. Co. v. Bangor & Aroostook R. Co., Me., 395 A.2d 1107, 1116-21 (1978). Such an agreement is absent in the present case. There has been no suggestion that Nisbet and Faunce personally agreed in writing to arbitrate any controversies between them. While Nisbet, as a practicing attorney, was required by Maine Bar Rule 3.3(c) to submit fee disputes to arbitration at a client's request, he did not thereby enter into a contract to arbitrate; by the force of Rule 3.3(c), only the attorney, not the client, is bound to submit to arbitration of fee disputes. See Reporter's Notes, Maine Reporter Vols. 396-400, LXX (1978-79). Neither can a client's petition for fee arbitration be considered a written agreement between the parties to submit the fee dispute to arbitration. A petition for fee arbitration under Maine Bar Rule 9(e)(1) [2] is merely a document by which a client may unilaterally initiate proceedings leading to arbitration. The petitioner agrees to be bound by the decision of a fee arbitration panel if a decision is ultimately rendered. Rule 9(e)(1)(B). However, the petitioner is not required to reach an agreement with the attorney that the matter will be submitted to arbitration. If and when the matter comes to hearing, the attorney's duty to cooperate arises, not from contract, but from the compulsion of Maine Bar Rule 3.3(c). Even were we to conclude that the client's petition for fee arbitration is the equivalent of the completion of a written agreement to submit to arbitration, we would nevertheless be obliged to address the provision of Bar Rule 9(g)(3) that renders the Uniform Arbitration Act inapplicable to the extent that it conflicts with the operation of the Maine Bar Rules. To declare the client's petition for fee arbitration irrevocable before the commencement of formal arbitration proceedings would impair the flexibility that has been carefully preserved in Bar Rule 9. Rule 9 does not contemplate an inexorable march to formal arbitration. Rather, the rule seeks to avoid formal arbitration when possible. Under Bar Rule 9(e)(2) [3] Bar Counsel is authorized to attempt to resolve the dispute informally through communication with the client and his attorney. If Bar Counsel is successful, the client's petition is deemed to have been withdrawn. It would be anomalous to hold that, before formal arbitration begins, a petition may be deemed withdrawn, but may not be withdrawn in fact when the client decides he no longer wants to go forward with it. Moreover, in such a case, to compel the client to proceed with unwanted arbitration would run counter to the principle that the Bar Rules are to be construed so as to eliminate unjustifiable expense, delay and inconvenience. Maine Bar Rule 2(a). Because Faunce withdrew his petition for fee arbitration before the commencement of formal arbitration proceedings under the Bar Rules, the Superior Court had no jurisdiction to compel either Faunce or the Board of Overseers to proceed with fee arbitration, and its dismissal of Count I of the complaint was proper.