LCI Learning

Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Share on LinkedIn

Share on Email

Share More

Veerendra   14 January 2024

How to engage a lawyer only on memorandum of appearance

Dear all eminent lawyers ,

This is pertaining  to a case in co-operative court in Mumbai .

Please let me know if we can engage a lawyer only on MEMORANDUM OF APPEARANCE .

If yes , what is the procedure ?

Also is this method of engaging a lawyer in vogue ? 

Hope to see a lot of comments & many thanks in advance for the same .

Regards ,

Veerendra Darakh 



Learning

 3 Replies

T. Kalaiselvan, Advocate (Advocate)     14 January 2024

It is no more in practice to engage an advocate by filing a memorandum of appearance.

it is pertinent that the client has to execute a vakalatnama to his advocate if this case has to be conducted through that advocate

Dr. J C Vashista (Advocate )     15 January 2024

Why (purpose) do you want to engage a lawyer on "Memorendum of appearance" and who shall be willing ot accept your offer ?

Veerendra   17 January 2024

Here with i will describe my experience.

In my cooperative court case against the society for overbilling no WS remark was passed. The opposite party wanted to file WS and later on  judge allowed WS with a cost

Thereafter I wanted to change my lawyer. My previous lawyer gave me NOC without any hassle.

I approached  a ( so called ) senior lawyer who runs a legal consulting firm.

He took a huge amount from me only to study the case. I paid that amount.

He then delegated a case to an associate. I was told to meet her after she will studies the case

 When I went  to meet her she had not studied  the case at all. She studied it in front of me haphazardly. Since I had paid the huge amount only  to study the case I had to give her the case anyway .

AND THEN THE NIGHTMARE BEGAN .

All my phone calls to seek any  went unanswered . If at all they were answered she used to speak with contempt and in a very insulting tone.

Any way I was told an amount for fighting the entire case . When I got the quote it was mentioned that it was only for an year.

On the quote the masthead contained her name but the last line was

Legal team

XYZ advisory ( The name of the advisory firm of the other lawyer ( so called ) 

Now the owner of the consulting firm said that the cheques can be drawn directly in the name of my lawyer. So i did accordingly.

For second instalment the owner of the consultancy firm  called me and said that the cheques should now be drawn on his name. And later on I realised the owner of the firm was not a lawyer and did not have a formal LLB degree at all .

Then my lawyer told me to draw the cheques in her name .

The owner of the consultancy kept on calling me and ultimately I blocked his number.

The lawyer did not appear for my case even once . Her holding advocates used to come. Every time some different holding advocates used to come. Most of the times they were not completely briefed on the case and hence they could not speak properly in front of the court.

Now I asked my current lawyer to refine my prayers and pleadings, for which she asked an additional amount.

Right now she is preparing a rejoinder to the WS of the opposite party. My other lawyer friends have told me that there is no need to file a rejoinder to the WS . After WS the judge will frame the issues

When i told my current lawyer that it was wrong on her part to  charge and additional amount for refining the prayers she did not give any proper answer. I told her instead of preparing a response to WS please refine the prayers.

There is still some time ( 15 days approximately ) to go before her contract period is over and by  her own admission refining the prayers is much is easier and less work than preparing a rejoinder to WS.

The she said that you pay the rest of the amount for NOC for the new lawyer .

My other lawyer friends have told me to complaint to the bar council. I don't wish to get into all this .

So now the eminent lawyers on the forum may please guide me as to what is to be done.

Therefore as a lay person I was wanting to know if we could engage a lawyer only on memorandum of appearance instead of getting stuck with a conceited person for the rest of the case.

Hope to see a lot of responses and many thanks in advance for the same.

Yours faithfully,

Veerendra Darakh


Leave a reply

Your are not logged in . Please login to post replies

Click here to Login / Register