A client who had paid an initial $5,000 retainer to a law firm to collect on the divorce judgment but made no further payments allegedly owed the firm nearly $100,000 in fees.

The firm sought a lien on alimony and child support payments.

The New Jersey Appellate Court held that there is no charging lien on post-judgment collection matters. 

After initially imposing an interim charging lien, the trial court conducted a plenary hearing. Relying on two unpublished appellate decisions, the trial court issued a June 18, 2015 order and written decision discharging the interim charging lien, denying entry of a final charging lien, and denying entry of judgment against plaintiff. The trial court issued a subsequent September 29, 2015 order with an attached statement of reasons awarding petitioner attorney’s fees in the amount of $50,000. Petitioner appeals from each of those rulings.

We affirm the denial of a charging lien, reverse the denial of the entry of a judgment in favor of petitioner, and vacate and remand the issue of determining the appropriate amount of the award of petitioner’s attorney’s fees to the Family Part.

New Jersey attorneys lien law

Here, petitioner did not represent plaintiff during the pendency of the underlying divorce action or its resolution. Instead, plaintiff retained petitioner to enforce the previously entered judgment. The services rendered by petitioner were limited to post-judgment enforcement of previously awarded relief obtained through the efforts of prior counsel. Thus, petitioner is not entitled to a charging lien for unpaid legal services rendered post-judgment.

The trial court had cut the fee in half.

Here

Plaintiff did not dispute petitioner’s hourly rates, which the trial court found to be commensurate with the rate charged by experienced counsel handling complex matrimonial matters. Rather, she challenged the number of hours expended by her counsel.

The evidence presented by petitioner included the monthly invoices for the unpaid services rendered from May 2011 to November 2012. Although the invoices set forth the date, type of service, identity of the person performing the work, time expended, and resulting amount, the invoices omit any description of the subject matter or purpose of the service rendered. For example, the invoices indicate the type of communication (telephone call or email) or conference with an individual without setting forth the subject matter. Moreover, while petitioner’s bills totaled some $99,356.10, defendant testified he incurred only $13,000 or $14,000 in legal fees during the same time period. Given these circumstances, plaintiff’s opposition to petitioner’s invoices cannot be fairly characterized as conclusory or unsupported…

Here, although the judge attempted to analyze the time expended by petitioner, he failed to make the substantive findings of fact and conclusions of law required by Rule 1:7-
4(a) to provide the basis for his decision to award one-half of the fees sought. We recognize the judge was thwarted from doing so because petitioner did not provide sufficient information necessary to fully engage in such an analysis. While the failure to provide such information would normally preclude an award of fees, it is not uncommon for this court on remand to allow curing of the defect.

(Mike Frisch)