Taylor v. Traylor
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After an attorney representing a grieving family was fired, the family's new attorneys asked the attorney for the case files, which he refused. Instead, the attorney demanded $308,000 in attorney fees. The trial court awarded a lesser amount.
The attorney contends it was an abuse of discretion for the trial court to refuse to apply the written terms of his retainer agreements. The court cannot say, based on the record the attorney gave to the court, that the trial court did any such thing. Rather, it appears that the trial court properly judged the attorney's evidence to be weak and discounted it appropriately. The court held that the $17,325 award was reasonable where the attorney never hired a court reporter and thus there is no record of the hearing; the attorney never gave his files to the new attorneys; and the attorney never explained the discrepancies in his supposed recordkeeping.
The court published to underline that contemporaneous time records are the best evidence of lawyers' hourly work. The court wrote that they are not indispensable, but they eclipse other proofs. In this case, the trial court was entitled to discount the attorney's belated and contradictory claims about his time on the case. The court held that the remaining issues are insubstantial.
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