This is in regards to excessive fees from attorney Todd Stone of Stone, Cardwell & Dinkin.
Mr. Stone asked for a 10,000.00 retainer. He said that he would need this before he would be able to start working on my case. I gave him the 10,000.00. What I got from him for the service was 2 meetings, 186 pages of email exchanges, between 3 & 6 phone calls lasting less than 20 minutes. A few on line searches and a few calls out of state. The calls provided no information. Mr. Stone was unable to provide service to me. The little bit that he did on the case provided no leads and no new information, I provided more information to him than he was able to give me. He based his decision on very little knowledge of my case. Once I terminated him he told me in an email that he'd continue to represent me keeping hinself on a "self retained" basis. Hell, at the beginning he told me that he couldn't and wouldn't do any work on the case without a retainer, so how is it now all of a sudden after i terminated him he is able to keep him self "self retained". I mentioned to Mr. Stone that I was worried about an ethics issues within his company. After that he told me that his company became very nervous with my stating this and that all of the staff were nervous. I asked Mr. Stone to release 2,000.00 of my retainer so that i would be able to pay my rent as I was facing eviction. He gave me 2,000.00 and refused to give the rest of the retainer back once I terminated him. He provided an outrageous invoice to use up the balance of the 8,000.00. I didn't expect Mr. Stone to work for free, and I offered to give him half of the 8,000.00, he refused. I don't fee that what little he did for the case I should be charged 8,000.00 for a few phone calls and 186 pages of emails. I've printed off everything that was exchanged and have copies of what I originally gave to Mr. Stone related to the case, which was never reviewed, it was given back to me in the same order and packaging as when I gave it to him. I have reported Mr. Stone and his company to the Virginia Bar Association, the Ethics committe, and the American Bar Association.
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