Michael R. Futterman, Esq. McCusker, Anselmi, Rosen & Carvelli, P.C. MARC Law Unfair and Questionable Billing Practices New York New York

Michael Futterman was retained to represent me and my estranged wife to defend them in a overtime case filed by a former employee after she was fired.

In this case the attorney received a $10,000 retainer in May 2017 that was supposed to be a flat fee. Then in September 2017 he emailed me saying that there is a balance of $8000. In response I asked to explain what the balance was for. No response.

In November, he emailed an invoice for $28,637.60 and informs that he would withdraw from the case in the middle of the case if the invoice was not paid immediately. And he did claiming that he was not paid since July 2017 and his clients were not complying with his requests for information.

We feel it was done intentionally as he expected I would cave in and pay it because the attorney's withdrawal may hurt the case greatly. Plus, the extra charges the new attorney will charge me just to get up to speed.

I am a popular target for lawsuits and I have multiple attorneys at the same time dealing with multiple matters. I always keep my invoices paid current.

After voicing a complaint, we received a letter a few weeks ago stating that the $10,000 initial retainer was applied towards the balance of $28,637.60. In other words, $28,637.60 was sin fact the total balance, meaning they were planning on keeping the retainer as a trust retainer and charge 28,637.60 on top of it, never heard of that before.