Opinion ID: 2261551
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appeals from the Committees

Text: Petitioner and the Association maintain that it is both unfair to lawyers and bad judicial policy for there to be no appeals permitted from Committee determinations. Some right to appeal, it is argued, is necessary in order to assure lawyers that compulsory arbitration under R. 1:20A will always be fair. At least with regard to appeals from Committee determinations on the merits, we find petitioner's concerns far outweighed by the advantages of having fee disputes settled expeditiously and finally at the Committee level. We do, however, recognize the desirability of providing a limited right to appeal if certain fundamental procedural protections are not afforded by a Committee. The wisdom of denying appeals on the merits from Committee decisions necessarily must depend on one's view of the importance of public confidence in the lawyer-client relationship. If it is true  and we believe it is  that public confidence in the judicial system is as important as the excellence of the system itself, and if it is also true  as we believe it is  that a substantial factor that erodes public confidence is fee disputes, then any equitable method of resolving those in a way that is clearly fair to the client should be adopted. The client's position in fee disputes is one of vulnerability from the beginning to the end: the lawyer has superior knowledge, usually superior bargaining power in arriving at the initial fee agreement, and, in any event, the ability to refuse the representation if not satisfied with its terms. If and when a dispute develops, a system that requires a client to hire another lawyer for trial and perhaps appeal on the fee dispute increases the client's initial vulnerability by significantly weakening his negotiating power to resolve the fee dispute. The client perceives, correctly, that the lawyer is part of the system, and when added to his dissatisfaction with his experience with that lawyer, the system offers him a remedy that, to him, promises not to solve his problem but only to compound it, dissatisfaction turns into despair and resentment. The least we owe to the public is a swift, fair and inexpensive method of resolving fee disputes. This may not end the dissatisfaction of some with the Bar and with the judicial system, but, at the very least, it will minimize the extent of such dissatisfaction. Further, it is important to assure the public that this Court, which has the ultimate power over the practice of law, will take an active role in making certain that clients are treated fairly in attorney-client disputes. Besides helping to sustain public confidence in the Bar, the finality of Committee determinations also protects clients who can ill afford the time and expense of defending a Committee judgment on appeal. As we noted in section IIIA, supra, one of our primary concerns in promulgating R. 1:20A was that clients should not be forced to incur such expenses in fee disputes. Finally, we find unpersuasive the position of petitioner and the Association that the unappealability of Committee determinations is unfair to lawyers. If that is unfair, it is at least equally unfair, for the client similarly has no appellate right. Further, when it is noted that Committee arbitration panels must consist of a majority of lawyers, it is difficult to see how such a system can be unfair to lawyers. Upon analysis, the claim that lawyers are treated as second class citizens is really not being seriously pursued, but rather the underlying claim is that lack of an appellate review renders the system less certain, in the aggregate, to yield just results. With that proposition taken in the abstract we have no argument, for appellate review is almost as essential a part of our notion of justice as is the trial itself. But just as in conventional arbitration proceedings, so here, appellate review may sometimes give way either in part or in whole to other social goals. It is our judgment that the advantages of swift, inexpensive proceedings outweigh by far any greater likelihood of just results achieved by allowing appellate proceedings. The loss of public confidence in the judicial system is too high a price to pay for some indeterminate improvement in the quality of fee arbitration determinations. We reaffirm, therefore, that appeals on the merits from Committee decisions will not be allowed. In barring appeals on the merits, however, we do recognize that both lawyers and clients may need a limited right of appeal in order to protect them from any egregious procedural deprivation before a Committee. We are, therefore, requesting the Civil Practice Committee, after soliciting the views of all interested parties, to recommend an amendment granting a limited right of appeal to the Disciplinary Review Board (DRB). That right should be limited to the following or similar grounds: that a Committee member failed to disqualify himself or herself in a case where he or she would appear evidently partial toward one of the parties; [29] that the Committee failed substantially to comply with the procedural requirements of R. 1:20A, e.g., by denying a party the right to subpoena witnesses; or that there was actual fraud on the part of one or more Committee members. Such limited appellate right will not create the problems outlined above for the following reasons. First, the extremely small number of complaints that have been lodged about Committee proceedings in the past, see note 28, supra, indicates that the Committees are run fairly and that consequently procedural appeals will be very rare. Second, we fully expect the DRB to handle any such appeals which may arise under R. 1:20A after it is amended with the understanding that speedy resolution of fee disputes is an important goal of our judicial system. Third, and most important, appeals of this kind to the DRB will ordinarily not require clients to find a new lawyer or incur any of the other expenses which would have to be incurred in court.