When Your Own Attorney Proposes Taking the Judgment Property

Attorney Answer

Your instinct was right: nothing should be signed until a lawyer who is not involved in the case has read the fee agreement and the court's order. What a lawyer is owed out of a recovery is set by the written fee contract the client signed and by the rules that govern Florida lawyers — not by an arrangement proposed after the asset is in sight.

The controlling document is that signed fee agreement. It states the percentage, how costs and expenses are handled, and whether the fee changes as a case moves through stages. It belongs to your mother-in-law, she is entitled to a copy, and every other number is measured against it. If what is being described does not match what she signed, that mismatch is the conversation.

Be careful with the numbers, though, in both directions. A property said to be worth a large sum is not that sum in hand. It can carry a mortgage, tax or code liens, or other judgments; it can be slow or hard to sell; and an order requiring a defendant to turn something over is a right to collect, not money collected. Those realities sometimes explain a split that looks indefensible at first glance — and sometimes they confirm that it is exactly as bad as it looks. Nobody can tell from the outside, which is the point: the figures have to be put in writing and shown before anything is signed.

A lawyer taking title to property connected to the client's own case is not an ordinary step. Business transactions between a Florida lawyer and a client, a lawyer acquiring an interest in the subject of the representation, and the handling of client funds and property are all governed by the Rules Regulating The Florida Bar, including trust-account and accounting requirements. The existence of those rules is precisely why this proposal needs independent review first rather than a signature now.

One more thing that matters practically. The client is your mother-in-law. The lawyer's duties run to her, and she is the one who can demand the file, demand a written statement of the numbers, ask questions, or end the representation. You can help her organize all of it, but the requests have to come from her, or from someone with legal authority to act for her.

What you can do

1. Get her a copy of the signed fee agreement and every written communication about the fee. She is entitled to both.

2. Ask, in writing, for an itemized written statement: the gross recovery, every cost and expense advanced, the fee claimed and how it was calculated, and her net.

3. Ask, in writing, how the property is being valued, what mortgages and liens are recorded against it, and why title would be taken by the lawyer rather than by her.

4. She should not sign a deed, a release, a settlement statement or any authorization until an uninvolved lawyer has read it. Accepting the papers is not the same as signing them.

5. Have an independent Florida attorney review the fee agreement, the court's order and the proposal. Disputes between a client and her own lawyer over fees are a recognized area of practice with established ways to resolve them. Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. The negligence claim itself ran under Fla. Stat. § 95.11 — for accidents before March 24, 2023, the former four-year period applied, and the Legislature shortened the period for later accidents — and that period is not the problem here, because the case was filed and is in front of a judge. The deadlines that bite now are the court's. The time to object to a proposed order, to seek relief from an order already entered, or to appeal one is measured in days from the date of the order, and it can run out while a client is still deciding what to do. Do not take a date from this page; have a Florida attorney read the actual order and confirm every deadline.