sork.com : Lawyering Skills

MEMORANDUM

To:
From:  
Date:
Re:
File:		Lawyering Skills I students
Lawyering Skills I faculty
January 12, 1999
Bill Livingston
LS1-S99-1

      Our firm, Lewin & Greenwich, represents Bill Livingston in connection with a lawsuit he brought against Barry Flint.  Back in July 1998, we agreed to represent Livingston with the agreement that he would pay us an hourly rate of $150 for our work on the case.  We filed the complaint on Livingston's behalf in Cook County Circuit Court on August 17, 1998.  We are currently in the middle of exchanging interrogatories and other discovery materials, and a tentative trial date has been set for May 10, 1999.  At least seven of the twenty lawyers in our firm have done some work on Livingston's case, although most of the work has been handled by Nate Greenwich.  Since late September of last year we have been sending Livingston bills reflecting the work that we have performed to date, but he has yet to pay us anything.  Greenwich says that in November, Livingston phoned him to say that he was experiencing cash flow problems, and Greenwich agreed to give Livingston "a few more weeks" to pay.

      Livingston and Flint's dispute dates back to 1996, when Flint asked Livingston to draw illustrations for a children's book that Flint was writing.  Livingston claims that Flint agreed to pay him $10,000 plus one third of any royalties that Flint received from the publisher.  In December 1996, after Livingston had completed the illustrations, Flint rejected them, claiming that they were offensive and unfit for publication.  Livingston was upset--he did not believe that his drawings were any more distasteful than Flint's text, and he had spent a great deal of time on them.  He offered to start over, but Flint was in a hurry to complete the book, and decided not to include any illustrations.  The book has not sold enough copies yet to generate any royalties for Flint, but Livingston believes that it might have sold many more copies had his illustrations been included.

      Livingston originally hired Rae LaFoote, a sole practitioner, to handle his dispute with Flint.  In April 1998, in an attempt to settle the dispute, Flint offered to pay Livingston $500 plus 10% of any royalties generated by the book.  When Livingston refused to accept the settlement offer, LaFoote told him that she was unwilling to represent him any longer.  He had not yet paid her any legal fees, and she did not demand payment for the work she had performed before withdrawing.

      It looks more and more as if we will never be paid for our work on this case.  Livingston relies on his income as a freelance artist, and he seems to be gambling on the prospect of winning a large damage award in his case against Flint.  Frankly, Flint's settlement offer was a generous one; it is unlikely that Livingston will recover anything if the case proceeds to trial, which is why we asked for payment based upon an hourly rate rather than a contingency basis in the first place.  (Several other attorneys that Livingston contacted after LaFoote resigned also declined to represent him.)

      Last week we sent a letter to Livingston, telling him that we were considering withdrawing from representing him.  He left a voice mail message in response, saying that he preferred that we continue representing him, but would not object if we insisted upon withdrawing.  (Presumably he would continue his case pro se if he were unable to engage another attorney to represent him.)  We also notified Flint, who is not represented by counsel, of our intent to withdraw.  He threatened to ask the court to force us to continue the representation, claiming that he has had to deal with too many different people on this matter already, and just wants it to end.  He said that the last thing he wants to do is to have to deal with Livingston directly.

      We plan to file a motion with the court seeking formal permission to withdraw from the case.  Please write an objective memorandum evaluating the likelihood that we will be permitted to withdraw.

      Please limit your research on this matter to the following authorities, copies of which are attached: