Court Opinion

ID: 9705355
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:03:53.772855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:10.279271
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE GREEN, dissenting: As indicated by the majority, Rule 2 — 107(a)(1)(b) of the Code of Professional Responsibility was adopted effective July 1, 1980, and provides that when a contract for division of fees is entered into between attorneys, they must advise the client of the “basis upon which the division will be made” (107 Ill. 2d R. 2 — 107(a)(1)(b)). The majority would apply that requirement to fee-splitting arrangements entered into prior to that date. I am not convinced that precedent so requires. While the gross disparity between work performed by plaintiff here and the portion of fee which he requests invites such a holding, I am concerned with the effect which our decision may have on other more reasonable arrangements for division of fees between attorneys entered into prior to July 1, 1980, where attorneys might not have thought that disclosure to the client was required as to the portion of the fee each attorney was to receive. Reversal of the award is not required here in order to set a standard for future arrangements between attorneys because Rule 2— 107(a)(1)(b) does that. The fee which the client was required to pay was not affected by the nature of the split. The even division of fees which defendants refuse to pay was agreed to by their partner. Under the circumstances, I deem the wiser and proper course to be to affirm the award of one-half of the fee to the plaintiff. I dissent from the proposed reversal of the award for that reason. Notably, Disciplinary Rule 2 — 107(A) of the American Bar Association Code of Professional Responsibility (Model Code of Professional Responsibility Canon 2 (1979)) does not expressly state that the percentage of the fee that each lawyer is to take must be disclosed to the client. Rather it merely requires “a full disclosure that a division of fees will be made.” The opinion in Corti v. Fleisher (1981), 93 Ill. App. 3d 517, 529-30, 417 N.E.2d 764, 774-75, refers to a similar American Bar Association rule which requires full disclosure that a division of fees is to be made but makes no express requirement that the percentages in the division of fees be disclosed to the client. The Corti opinion says nothing about a requirement that the nature of the division of fees be given to the client. I recognize that the force of this dissent is somewhat lessened by our decision in the first appeal (Schniederjon v. Krupa (1985), 130 Ill. App. 3d 656, 474 N.E.2d 805) in which I concurred in the opinion of the court. There, this court held that summary judgment was improperly granted for the defendants, because a factual issue existed as to whether an attorney-client relationship existed between the client and plaintiff depending upon whether the client had agreed to retain plaintiff after plaintiff “[had] fully disclosed the fee arrangement.” (Schniederjon v. Krupa (1985), 130 Ill. App. 3d 656, 660, 474 N.E.2d 805, 809.) The evidence before the court in ruling on the motion for summary judgment contained a deposition in which plaintiff testified that he had told the client that the fee was to be split evenly. As the majority has indicated, plaintiff testified at trial that he could not remember whether he informed the client as to the manner in which the fee was to be split. Thus, the evidence before the court at trial was weaker on the question of the details of the fee arrangement given by plaintiff to the client than it was at the hearing on the motion for summary judgment. Despite the words of this court’s opinion in the former case requiring a full disclosure of the “fee arrangement,” I do not interpret that language as necessarily requiring disclosure as to the division of fees. Rather, it involved a recitation of the rules set forth in Rule 2 — 107A and Corti v. Fleisher (1981), 93 Ill. App. 3d 517, 417 N.E.2d 764. Neither of these rules expressly advised attorneys that they need reveal the nature of the split of fees to their clients. Accordingly, neither the rule of the law of the case (Bradley v. Howard Hemhrough Volkswagen, Inc. (1980), 89 HI. App. 3d 121, 411 N.E.2d 535), nor the precedent of our previous decision requires that we reverse the judgment entered by the circuit court on remand.