The Wrong Way To Collect Fees

A Colorado attorney was suspended for 18 months based on his conditional admission of misconduct. The summary of the case indicates that:

...[the attorney] settled his own claim for fees against a former client as he negotiated his current client's debt to the former client, paying himself from funds set aside to pay medical claims owed to the former client, and using confidential information from the representation to compromise the debt.

The attorney also had failed to maintain contemporaneous time for billing purposes and failed to place unearned fees in an escrow account. (Mike Frisch)