I retained Mr. Barber and the Law Office of Bohdan Neswiacheny as my attorney in a case on or about 4/22/2014. We agreed that he would take the case on contingency for part of the case and at an hourly rate for another part of the case. There were several problems with Mr. Barber's handling of the case. These included: not knowing the proper procedure for default in the state of Florida, not informing his client of the proper procedure of appealing a summary judgment, and not following the proper procedure for filing for punitive damages.
On top of this, Mr. Barber and I had a disagreement as to the fees associated with the case. He charged me for travel time to the opposing attorneys’ offices to depose our own witnesses, including expert witnesses. Because I had lost my job in the process of this lawsuit, I had found it difficult to pay all of the fees. I disagreed with some of the charges and asked him to reconsider them and recalculate the bill. Somewhere around 3 weeks before the actual start of the trial, Bohdan Neswiacheny, Mr. Barber's boss and senior partner of the firm, made an appointment with me to tell me that they would drop me as a client if I did not get my account paid current before the trial. At that time, the bill was over $25,000. Because I had sold my home and was able to procure new employment by that time, I was able to begin paying the bill that week and up to the week before the trial. I assured Mr. Barber that I would be able to pay the balance up to date before the trial started if he would recalculate the improper charges. I had paid a total of $27,000 toward the bill already. I was contacted by Bohdan Neswiacheny and told that I needed to pay an additional $30,000 just days before the start of trial or they would drop me as a client and file motion to withdraw as my counsel. They demanded that I pay $30,000 that day or face the difficulty of finding a new attorney less than a week before trial. I continued to dispute several thousand dollars in charges that were inappropriately billed and had not received an invoice for the additional charges. I agreed to pay an additional $5000 before the start of the trial. I discussed with attorney Sean Barber my disputes and asked him to reconsider his decision to be removed as my attorney and ask for a continuance in the case. Because I was unwilling to pay for several thousand dollars’ worth of travel time overbilling, Sean Barber filed a motion to withdraw as my attorney for the case less than four days before the start of the trial. I feel it is totally unethical for an attorney to decide just days before the start of the trial of a case that he and his client had been preparing for more than two years to file a motion to withdraw as counsel. It is most certainly unethical to do so over a dispute for fraudulent billing that the attorney knew was inappropriately billed.
Not only did my attorney knowingly overcharge me, but he also mishandled key portions of the case. First, he misinformed me as to the process of default in the case. He allowed the opposing party to delay response to the complaint until over six months after the complaint was filed. On top of this, my attorney charged me to file motions to allow the defendant an extension to answer the complaint. He also misinformed me as to the process of appealing a summary judgment ruling. Furthermore, he mishandled the process of requesting punitive damages in the case and did not file a motion in time to request punitive damages. To add insult to injury, once the case was settled (because I knew my attorney did not want to represent me and that the defendant knew this too) Mr. Barber sought compensation for the contingency on the case despite filing a motion to be removed as my attorney that same day. He then lied in court to a judge when I disputed that payment.