I paid a retainer to Mr. Henninger to represent me in a case, but subsequently decided to hire another attorney. Mr. Henninger had done very little work on my case, so I requested a final bill an the return of the unused portion of the retainer. Mr. Henninger never gave me a retainer letter and never provided me with a fee disclosure at any time, as he is required to do.
He did not return any of my calls or answer any emails I sent to him. My new attorney was also trying to reach him to help resolve the matter, but after the initial communication between them Mr, Henninger ceased returning his calls as well.
Several weeks later, Mr. Henninger advised my new attorney that the retainer had been "used up, " which not only wasn't true, but didn't match what he had initially said. As I am writing this I STILL have not received any billing from Mr Henninger.
After sending him another email, stating that I was pursuing arbitration and ethics complaints against him and planning to sue to collect the funds due he replied to me and advised me the the retainer was "non-refundable, " so it "doesn't matter" where it was billed or spent.
As he never even gave me a fee disclosure he did not state that the retainer was non-refundable. I have never heard of such a thing and would never have agreed. Further, as he originally advised my new attorney that he would speak with him later about the refund check (he never did) it is apparent that the "non-refundable" retainer is a recent invention, motivated by my advising him that I am going to demand complete an accurate accounting of what was billed.
Mr. Henninger has changed his story several times, and he has failed to adhere to even the most basic requirements of providing a fee disclosure and a retainer letter. He appears to be mostly interested in collecting retainers, at least to the extent I can see.
He also has a bunch of different web sites and also lists many different addresses.
There are many good attorneys. My advise it to STEER CLEAR OF JEF HENNINGER.
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