SJC questions timeliness of lawyer's fee collection claim.

Byline: Pat Murphy

Members of the Supreme Judicial Court recently appeared skeptical of a Boston lawyer's assertion that he had not waited too long to file an action to collect money due under a fee agreement with a client who discharged his firm in 2010.

In Halstrom v. Dube, Frederic N. Halstrom claims he is entitled to compensation under a provision in a medical malpractice contingent fee agreement stating that "[i]f the client wishes to discharge the Law Firm, the client shall, in this event, be lia

ble to the Law Firm for a fee at the hourly rate of" $350.

Halstrom filed an action to collect pursuant to that provision in Suffolk Superior Court on July 7, 2016, even though the client had discharged his firm more than six years earlier.

According to Halstrom, his fee claim accrued in 2012 within the applicable six-year statute of limitations for contract claims provided in G.L.c. 260, 2. In late 2012 the client, David O. Hicks, settled his med-mal case.

But at oral arguments on Dec. 3, Justice David A. Lowy asked Halstrom to explain why his fee claim did not accrue in 2010 when the client left his firm to go with Boston attorney Michael J. Grace. A co-defendant in the case, Grace had been employed by Halstrom until being fired in a dispute over pay.

"If the contingent fee [agreement] is the contract and the [client] leaves the firm, then you're on notice that you're entitled to [your fees], and that's the point in time in which the statute of limitations should run, isn't it?" Lowy asked.

Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants also seemed to find that the language of the fee agreement, which Halstrom himself had drafted, pointed to an earlier trigger for the statute of limitations.

"It's one thing if you had said if you prevail at trial or settlement then that triggers [the client's obligation to pay the hourly charges], and then arguably you would not be able to demand the money until the contingency had occurred," Gants said. "But you didn't do that. So aren't you stuck with the fact that you did not include any contingency to trigger the obligation to pay?"

According to Halstrom, it simply did not make sense to file a claim against the client until after the settlement of the med-mal case.

"I thought it would be against the best interest of the late Mr. Hicks to file a lawsuit against him, and any lawsuit against this client would be useless because he had no money," Halstrom told Lawyers Weekly.

Because ultimately it is up to the trial court to...