Court Opinion

ID: 9759061
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:02:21.242557+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:58.796567
License: Public Domain

WATHEN, C.J.,
with whom RUDMAN, J., joins, concurring.
[¶ 18] I concur in the result, but I reach that result more directly and, possibly, more forcefully.
[¶ 19] I begin with the premise that “an attorney-client fee dispute is no ordinary contractual controversy.” Anderson v. Elliott, 555 A.2d 1042, 1049 (Me.1989). As officers of the court, attorneys who have taken the oath to delay no person “for lucre or malice, but ... conduct [themselves] in the office of an attorney ... with all good fidelity, as well as to the courts, as to [their] clients,” 4 M.R.S.A. § 806 (1989), are members of a regulated profession and are subject to the court’s inherent supervisory power.- Anderson, 555 A.2d at 1048. Thus, in addition to their general fiduciary duties, attorneys are held to high standards “ ‘derived from traditions of the bar designed to assure fairness and efficiency of court procedures and adjudications and to foster public confidence in such fairness and efficiency.’ ” Id. (quoting In re Dineen, 380 A.2d 603, 604 (Me.1977)). One of these standards finds expression in the rule that “[a] lawyer shall not enter into an agreement for, charge, or collect an illegal or excessive fee.” M. Bar R. 3.3(a) (emphasis added). This rule is based on a standard of professionalism that “emphasize[s] the subordination of financial gain to an ideal of public service.” Anderson, 555 A.2d at 1048. Thus, regardless of the language of a fee agreement, a court that is asked to enforce the agreement must always consider the reasonableness of the fee claimed.
[¶ 20] In the present case, there are genuine issues of material fact regarding the reasonableness of the fee, the finance charges, and the attempt to collect either or both on a complaint that may be beyond the applicable statute of limitations.