Contracts for court-appointed attorneys in Maricopa County Probate Court require that any lawyer assigned to protect an incapacitated adult personally handle the entire case.
But court records show some law firms have taken on clients in the name of one attorney and gotten another lawyer in the firm to do the work. Court contracts have banned that practice for years to prevent lawyers on the contract rotation list from getting a disproportionate share of cases or farming out work to non-contract attorneys. Court observers say the practice could allow some lawyers to bill at higher rates than those charged by the person doing the actual work.
Yet county administrators are not raising objections.
Court records show that the Phoenix law firm of Theut, Theut and Theut, whose attorneys are assigned more probate cases than nearly any other, substituted lawyers in more than half of the cases it handled in 2007 and 2008.
The firm's lawyers, who are brothers, say they were given verbal permission to substitute attorneys on cases by the county agency in charge of overseeing contracts. They say no judge has ever raised it as an issue.
Court contracts state that a contract attorney can provide a substitute only in the event of illness, approved vacation or when otherwise physically unable to appear in court. It mandates that the "contractor is expected to personally attend each and every court or court-related proceeding."
Lawyer Mark Kennedy, who ran the Office of Public Defense Service from 2000 to 2007, said the contract provisions were added years ago to stop rampant problems involving lawyers from taking out contracts and farming out the work to partners or outside firms.
"This is a personal-services contract," said Kennedy. "It is not awarded to firms."
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Maricopa Probate Court: Lawyers Substituted Despite Law
5 comments:
Let the word spread loud and clear about these lawyers.
Current clients should consider running!
In many contested guardianships, the guardian's lawyer will hire additional lawyers and sometimes, those additional lawyers will hire more lawyers.
The cozy relationship between lawyers, fiduciaries, and judges in AZ is sickening.
Thanks Arizona Republic and ABC 15 for your work in exposing this racket.
Yes, they do it anyway. No matter what the law says, they do it anyway.
And that's because they're all buddies.
If the judges won't do the righth thing, get rid of them!
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