I was a client of Phillips & Associates for a Disorderly Conduct. The charge happened approximately January 13, with a court appearnce of January 19th. I appeared without counsel but then hired Phillips & Associates on January 20th. P&A was kind enough to work out a plan so that I could pay them monthly to satisfy a total fee (for representation) of approximately $6000.00, but they demanded $200.00 up front. They drafted checks to create the payment plan; there was to be $600.00 on February 1st and each subsequent month, a charge of $520.00 until the bill was satisfied. There were some complications with their accounting collecting from my bank account, but the money was there. However, I never received a simple phone call to tell me that they were having complications, until I had made some correspondence with my assigned lawyers' assistant. I quickly corrected the problem, but I took $800.00 to ensure that the account was satisfied prior to my
lawyer's appearance in court.
On the day of the first court appearance, February 9th my lawyer appeared before a judge and the case was dismissed by the District Attorney's office. Two days later, I finally get a phone call from my lawyer, and he told me that my record (which is clean) didn't arrive until the morning of the 9th, and that when he went to court, he was "offered" to accept a dismissal, because the case did not reach the level of Disorderly Conduct. He further told me that he was simply waiting for the paperwork from the court (which should take a couple of days) and the case would be closed.
The following week, I began inquiring about that paperwork so that I could have a stop to P&A collecting any additional monies; where hopefully a final bill could be arbitrated. No paperwork. Another week went by; No Paperwork. Also, I would be promised to get correspondence or phone call from the lawyer, no correspondence but the only phone call that I received was from another "department" in their firm, inquiring about why I no longer wanted their services. I corrected the individual and told him what I was seeking. So I waited for the promised correspondence to conclude my case.
The end of February came and they took another $520.00 from my account, but still no correspondence, no closure. So I waited until the 20th of March and by that time, I'm fearing the end of the month, and another $520.00. I made a small inference to being unsatisfied with how I was being handled, and I demanded to have correspondence and closure; I was promised that someone would call and "explain" to me the case.
Thursday, March 25 comes and I again send another email, complaing more stronger about their lack of correspondence and handling of me as their client, and what I thought should have been handled more than a month ago. I return from class Thursday night and find a letter, where P&A says, "We'll agree to reduce your total cost to $1320.00, and here are the rest of your checks". They included what I call a cockamamie list of their supposed timeline of work applied to my case.in the end, they then say that they worked 5 hours and 20 minutes on my case; it didn't say what they were charging per hour. But it was all created to support their exaggerated charge for walking into court and having the case dropped by the DA.
What was significant about my record showing up on the 9th, is that my lawyer, Mr Jacob, couldn't work on my case until he received my record; he needed a point to start from in order to proceed forward. Finding that I had a clean record (at 46 y/o) he was, as he said, "encouraged that he could have the case thrown out". I complained to 3 On Your Side, here in Phoenix, and I offered them a copy of my complaint. Now I'm getting phone calls from P&A, but not all the while that I was their client.
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