Part 137 of the Regulations of the Chief Administrator determines a state Attorney-Client Fee Dispute Resolution Program. It is valid for all cases initiated after January 1, 2002, to lawyers who agree to represent a client in the majority of civil cases. Part 137 ensures that in the event that a fee dispute between a lawyer and client, the latter may request to settle the conflict by arbitration. The lawyer’s involvement is obligatory at the client’s determination. Arbitral awards are definitive and legally binding by the law in force if neither party requires renewing a trial within 30 days.
A lot of court associations have supplied arbitration and mediation of lawyer-client fee conflicts. This latest program is created to build on these accomplishments and develop them into a state network of court-sponsored programs to the extent workable, with extra support from home district administrative justice’s offices where needed. Though the new regulations envisage arbitration as a major means of settlement fee disputes, intermediation is greatly promoted as well.
Local fee conflict resolution programs are supported by the Board of Governors and the proper Presiding justice of the Appellate Department. Guy James Mangano, the former Presiding Justice of the Appellate Department, presides over the Board, which consists of twelve members of the Court and six civil members of the public. The Board supervises the Program and is accountable for accrediting, reckoning up and observing fee dispute resolution programs and assuring that fee conflict resolution services are presented everywhere in the state.
Independent and administrative provisions of Part 136 of the Regulations of the Chief Administrator, “Fee Arbitration in Inner Relations Matters,” will carry on to apply to fee conflicts emerging out of lawyer-client relationships structured through December 31, 2001 and will finally be staged out with the slow decrease in appropriate cases. Lawyers who to agree to represent clients in inner relations matters on or after January 1, 2002 will be subordinate to the provisions of Part 137.
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