A White Plains lawyer claims that an attorney who replaced him in a motor vehicle accident lawsuit has failed to pay him $175,000 for his work.
David B. Lever petitioned Westchester Supreme Court on Oct. 9 to compel Forest Hills attorney David J. Broderick to pay10% of the legal fees earned in a Queens lawsuit.
“To be clear,” Lever states, Broderick “has steadfastly kept petitioner [Lever] in the dark” regarding the settlement in the Queens lawsuit.
Broderick responded in a court filing that Lever’s petition must be denied “due to potential ethical violations,” and because Lever did almost no work to justify a 10% fee.
The dispute concerns a 2017 accident in Ozone Park, Queens where a vehicle driven by Orlando Rios, of Suffolk County, was hit by a bus. He retained Lever to sue the bus driver and bus company.
Lever says he obtained the police report, photographs, and medical records, and he corresponded with an insurance company.
Six weeks after retaining Lever, Rios hired Broderick. According to an affidavit he prepared with Broderick’s help in 2017, he had found Lever to be rude and discourteous.
He hired Lever because a tow truck driver who pulled up at the accident scene said he had worked with a law firm, called him that night and again the next day and persuaded him.
After he retained Broderick as his attorney, Broderick proposed paying Lever a 10% fee, “as a matter of professional courtesy to … the out-going attorney.” Lever consented to the arrangement and turned his case files over to Broderick.
From 2019 to spring 2023, Lever says, he repeatedly called and messaged Broderick’s firm to inquire about the status of the case. The firm allegedly failed to reply or merely advised that the matter was pending.
Rios settled the lawsuit in May 2023, but Lever didn’t know until Sept. 2023 when he reviewed the case docket. He continued contacting Broderick’s firm but still did not get the answers he was looking for.
The settlement entry does not say how much Rio won, but Lever spotted an item posted on Broderick’s website that described similar circumstances and a $1.75 million settlement.
Lever is demanding disclosure of the settlement amount, 10% of the fee, and 9% interest per annum since May 2023.
Broderick claims that Lever has no standing to demand payment because the deal was made with a previous firm, David B. Lever & Associates. Now he is a member of Lever & Ecker PLLC, but he has provided no evidence of a name change or assignment of rights demonstrating that the new firm is a party of interest.
Lever also is not entitled to the fee, Broderick claims, because the rules of professional conduct prohibit lawyers from using agents or “runners” to solicit business. The actions of the tow truck driver, he says, are a “classic example of improper running.”
“With all due respect,” Broderick states in a court filing, “Mr. Lever spent more time chasing this case than working on it.”
