Opinion ID: 835498
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Anderson Matter

Text: On November 27, 2000, Anderson retained the accused to represent her in the dissolution of her marriage. Anderson and the accused executed a written fee agreement, which required Anderson to pay a nonrefundable lump sum, earned when paid fee of $1,500. The agreement provided that the accused would credit his first ten hours of work to that fee and that additional time would be charged at $150 per hour and billed monthly. The agreement also provided that Anderson would be responsible for all costs, including expert witness fees, filing fees, subpoena fees etc. and that the accused would send her pleadings, documents, correspondence, and other information throughout the case. Anderson gave the accused a check for $1,500. The accused did not deposit that check into his lawyer trust account; instead, he deposited it into his business account. Additionally, the accused advised Anderson that the filing fee in her case would be $300 and asked Anderson to give him a separate check for that amount. Anderson gave the accused a second check in the amount of $300, which he deposited into his lawyer trust account. On November 28, 2000, the accused filed a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage in Yamhill County Circuit Court and drew a check against his lawyer trust account in the amount of $225 to pay the filing fee. Subsequently, the accused performed legal services for Anderson in the dissolution matter. During his representation of Anderson, the accused did not keep regular time records of services that he performed for her, did not provide monthly billings as provided in the fee agreement, and never prepared any billing statements or other accountings concerning her funds in, the trust account. On September 20, 2001, Anderson wrote a letter to the accused in which she expressed her dissatisfaction with his representation and terminated his services. bn that letter, Anderson requested an itemized statement detailing the services rendered to her :337 the accused, a copy of her file, and a refund of the unearned portion of the $1,503 retainer. In response to that letter, on September 5, 2001, the accused prepared a billing statement concerning Anderson's dissolution matter. In that billing statement, the accused represented that he had devoted 18.0 hours to Anderson's dissolution matter between November 27, 2000 and September 14, 2301, and that, after the $1,503 retainer was deducted from the total amount due, Anderson owed an outstanding balance of $1,335. Because the items in that billing are central to certain of the Bar's allegations, we discuss a few of them in further detail. The accused billed Anderson 3.3 hours on November 28, 2300, for preparing and filing the petition for dissolution and other related documents. Additionally, he billed 1.8 hours on November 30, 2003, to Finalize Initial Dissolution Documents. On that date, the accused filed an amended petition that was identical to the original petition filed on November 28, except that the amended petition included the date of the Andersons' marriage and husband's Social Security Numberinformation that the accused had omitted from the original petition. The accused billed Anderson for a Telephone call to [husband] re inheritance on January 10, 2001, and for a Conference with [husband] re Uniform Affidavit on April 13, 2001. At his deposition, the accused stated that he could not recall having any conversations with husband. The accused further testified that the January billing entry must have been wrong, because the telephone call must have been to either husband's lawyer (Bierly) or Anderson, and that the April billing entry incorrectly referred to husband instead of some other person. Nothing in the record, other than the billing statement itself, indicates that the accused had any communication with Anderson, Bierly, or any other person connected to Anderson's case on either of those dates. Indeed, the testimony of several witnesses, including the accused, contradicted those time entries. [4] The accused also billed Anderson for a conference with husband's attorney's office on July 12, 2001. That billing entry states: JO: Telephone conference with Bierly office re filing pleadings; receive letter from Bierly's office re out of Town until 7/23/01. The Bar asserts that that entry was for time spent on Anderson's case by the accused's legal assistant, whose initials were JO. Bierly testified that his office had contact with the accused's assistant on July 12, 2001, but not with the accused. The accused testified that he recalled doing work on Anderson's case on that date and that he thought that the entry actually reflected time that he had spent on the case. He further testified that, if the entry reflected his assistant's time, he had not intended to bill for that time because the fee agreement did not permit him to do so. The accused also stated that, if his assistant had performed work on Anderson's case on that date, then he likely had, as well. Following the termination of his services on September 20, 2001, the accused did not return to Anderson the remaining $75 of the $300 that she had advanced for filing fees. Neither did he provide an accounting of those funds. As noted above, by November 2001, the accused had drawn down the balance in his trust account to $46.13. More than a year later, after the Bar began its investigation, the accused, on October 10, 2002, deposited $75 into his trust account to cover the funds belonging to Anderson.