Court Opinion

ID: 9465692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:53:09.482655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:29.917305
License: Public Domain

BARRETT, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result reached and in much of the reasoning and rationale of the majority opinion.
I am not prepared to hold that the District Court erred in finding that Professor Fiflis was a nonlawyer in Colorado for the purpose of the contingent fee arrangement entered into between Fiflis and the law firms of SERS and H&K whereby Fiflis was to be compensated at a rate equal to the highest rate charged by the SERS and H&K partners in the case, plus 7.5% of any additional (contingent) fee allowed SERS and H&K. I wish to make it clear that I am referring singularly to the contingent fee-splitting aspect of the agreement. In any event, Colorado provides that a lawyer shall not divide a fee for legal services with another lawyer who is not a partner or associate of the firm or law office unless the client consents to the employment of the other lawyer after a full disclosure that a division of fees will be made and the division is in proportion to the services performed and the responsibility assumed by each. See: DR 2-107, App. to Ch. 18 to 20, Code of Professional Responsibility, Vol. 7A, Colo.Rev.Stat.1973. Thus, under the facts and circumstances of this record, I would not disturb the District Court’s order of December 23, 1976, refusing to approve the contingent fee arrangement.
Further, I do not believe that the District Court erred in denying Fiflis’ motion to intervene because he now purports to attack, on appeal, the very jurisdiction of the District Court to decide his compensation, notwithstanding that Fiflis (who was present at all of the hearings with SERS and H&K) did not challenge the December 23, 1976, order until the Court rejected the voluntarily re-negotiated contract (which eliminated the fee-splitting arrangement) by its order of March 7, 1977. In fact, it was not until after the court’s order of March 23, 1977, some three months following the December 23, 1976, order that Fiflis moved to intervene. In my view, he was out of time insofar as any attack on the fee-splitting agreement set aside on December 23, 1976. Beyond this, however, I would hold that when Fiflis and the law firms of SERS and H&K voluntarily renegotiated the fee arrangement whereby fee-splitting was omitted in favor of an agreed hourly compensation of $125.00 coupled with a per annum interest rate that this mooted any challenge to the District Court’s ruling of December 23, 1976.
I concur in the result reached because, notwithstanding my view that Fiflis’ motion to intervene was properly denied, I nonetheless believe that Fiflis has standing to challenge the Court’s March 23, 1977, order. Under all of the circumstances, Fi-flis must be treated as an aggrieved party whose property interest can be protected only by recognizing his entitlement to prosecute an appeal from the March 23, 1977, judgment and order. See: 9 Moore’s Federal Practice $ 203.06 (2d ed. 1948, Supp.) and cases cited in the majority opinion.
I do not believe that the District Court properly resolved the renegotiated contract whereby Fiflis was to receive $125.00 per hour, plus interest. When the Court disapproved of this arrangement, it did so solely on the basis that the hourly rate exceeded the typical hourly rates for attorneys admitted to practice in the Court’s jurisdiction and this despite the Court’s prior refusal to approve the contingent fee arrangement because Fiflis was a nonlawyer. Fiflis was in nowise referred to in the renegotiated contract as an attorney. He was classified as a consultant, an employee of SERS and H&K. It follows, I believe, that because the controversial fee-splitting arrangement had been eliminated, the District Court should not have concerned itself with Fiflis’ *428compensation from SEES and H&K, inasmuch as the Court had already awarded those firms their total fees. Thus, the apportionment between them and those they had contracted with should not have concerned the Court.