Florida Guardianship Lawyer Wins Attorney Fee Appeal
If you are involved in a Palm Beach guardianship, you should know who’s going to pay your attorneys fees. Who gets paid from the guardianship funds ? Who doesn’t? If you are involved in a guardianship matter in Palm Beach County, Florida, or any Florida guardianship case for that matter, you must read this March 7, 2014 Florida guardianship appeals court opinion. If you are Palm Beach elder law lawyer or a Palm Beach guardianship attorney, you DEFINITELY need to read this guardianship opinion from Florida’s 2nd District Court of Appeal. A Florida guardianship lawyer who renders services in a Florida guardianship should receive reasonable attorneys fees & costs. The Florida elder law attorney who represented the ward in a guardianship proceeding, wanted to be paid attorneys fees in the guardianship matter. He also wanted to be reimbursed for costs he spent money on in the Florida guardian case. The Florida probate court, the Florida guardianship court, gave the Florida elder law lawyer only some of his attorneys fees and no reimbursement for costs. The Florida guardianship lawyer appealed. The appeals court REVERSED the lower Guardianship Court because the Florida Probate Court’s finding about the guardianship lawyer’s fees was not supported by “competent, substantial evidence.” Florida Guardianship Law is governed, at least in a big way, by the Florida Probate Code and Chapter 744 of the Florida Statutes. Attorneys fees requests and hearings on Florida guardianship lawyer fees is almost a subspecialty of Florida probate law. Palm Beach probate courts deal with fee hearings all the time. Guardianship fees and costs are a unique area of the Florida law on guardianships.