In re Fordham
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
423 Mass. 481, 668 N.E.2d 816 (1996)
- Written by Craig Conway, LLM
Facts
Laurence Clark hired attorney Laurence Fordham (defendant) to represent his son who had been charged with driving under the influence after he failed two breath tests and registered .10 and .12. At their first meeting, Fordham informed Clark that he had never represented a client in a criminal matter but that he would agree to the representation at the rate of $200 per hour. Thereafter, Fordham worked diligently on the case for several months. He filed four pretrial motions and a motion to suppress the breath tests on the unique theory that, although the two tests were exactly .02 apart from each other, they were not “within” .02 of one another as required by Massachusetts regulations. Clark’s son was later found “not guilty” of the offense. Fordham sent Clark a bill for $50,022.25 reflecting 227 hours of billed time, 173 hours by Fordham and 74 hours by his associate attorneys. Counsel for the Massachusetts State Bar (Bar Counsel) accused Fordham with charging an excessive fee under disciplinary rule (DR) 2-106. A panel of the disciplinary board (the panel) held in favor of Fordham. Bar Counsel appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (O’Connor, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 788,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,200 briefs, keyed to 988 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
