The attorneys defending Mike Lindell and his business against defamation claims from voting machine companies are seeking to sever ties with the “MyPillow Guy” over millions of dollars in unpaid legal fees.
In a court filing Thursday, the law firm of Parker Daniels Kibort LLC said Lindell and MyPillow are months behind on their legal bills in three defamation cases, and they can no longer afford to represent him.
“At this time, Defendants are in arrears by millions of dollars to PDK,” the filing said. “PDK is a small litigation and trial firm in Minneapolis, MN and cannot afford to finance Defendants’ defense in the Litigations.”
Is anyone surprised? I don’t understand why these law firms don’t require payment up front for “defendants” like this. I wouldn’t represent them for all the money in the world but if I was going to I wouldn’t do it on good faith that they’ll pay me when the bill becomes due. The minute the owe me a cent, all work stops until payment is received.
At the very least after the first few ten thousand dollars of unpaid bills I would stop working. But there may be other considerations.
It’s pretty common for corporate stuff (legal or otherwise) to start with no payment changing hands, just a contract. Then an invoice lands either monthly or on completion afterwards.
That makes it easier for the work to actually start (otherwise you need to engage the finance dept up front and they’re often slow), and once the contract is signed and the work started that’s the sales process complete.
It’s common, but it’s also common to require payment up front or refuse service to businesses with bad credit and/or financial reputation.
Yes but the retainer is not millions of dollars. I engage a number of firms at any one time and the largest retainer I’ve ever had was $10k.
It’s common, but probably shouldn’t be for these right wing grifters. Or just grifters in general. If you know someone is trying to start some idealogical bullshit in order to satisfy a personal grievance, you can just kind of assume that you’re not getting paid.
I get that for normal clients but letting it get to millions is a bit silly unless you have a guarantee of payment and I’m not one bit surprised this waste of oxygen isn’t paying up/claiming he can’t. I would insist on extra upfront on top but there’s probably a reason I’m not a successful and rich lawyer
Maybe that’s the point.
Ive needed lawyers for family shit and it was always paid up front. Idk how these guys are getting a fresh dollar worth of work without compensation.
Same way banks work, when you owe them 30,000 and can’t pay, you’re fucked. When you owe them 100 million they’re fucked.
The only time I didn’t pay a lawyer up front was to represent me on contingency and they’d take a percentage of the settlement. No fucking way a lawyer would just represent me without a retainer in any other kind of trial (unless they were pro bono).
Hopefully it will put scumbag lawyers like this out of business.
I couldn’t do it but I understand that to have a balanced law system there needs to be lawyers to defend even the guilty. Some are ethically challenged and stoop to disgusting tactics but not all who defend the obviously guilty play dirty. Frustrating when bad people evade justice on a technicality but sometimes that’s the fault of the prosecution for making a mistake, which of course happen as matter of course though that doesn’t make it any more palatable.
Agreed, but it’s hard to feel bad for people with no morals. ’ I will absolutely represent this delusional shitbag, if the money is right’ should not be a thing.
Hopefully it sinks all of them. It won’t of course, the lawyers will be fine, their interns might be laid off, MyDildo has already been abandoned by his hero. Nothing changes.
I understand the moral outrage, but remember that our laws guarantee everyone the right to effective legal counsel—even shitty, guilty people. For this reason, I think one has to give some pause before judging lawyers who defend obviously shitty/guilty clients. I saw an expose once on a hated defense lawyer who almost always took cases wherein the defendant was obviously guilty and had virtually no shot at trial due to overwhelming evidence. He maintained he took the clients in question specifically because he felt everyone deserved the right to a decent lawyer and this class of people are often shunned by attorneys who prioritize their win/lose ratio.
An attorney is only guaranteed on criminal cases where you don’t have the funds to pay for one.
For civil cases, you have to represent yourself or hire an attorney.
For some of these firms it’s free press, even if their client is a deadbeat or just plain old ridiculous.
For some of these firms it’s free press, even if their client is a deadbeat or just plain old ridiculous.