Attorney retainer agreements often seem to be contracts of adhesion…a term we rarely see post-law school.  Client comes to attorney at many disadvantages.  Client is in trouble, is coming to a "wise man" seeking help, knows that client needs to pay, and is subject to a serious disparity between their bargaining positions.  Nevertheless, the vast majority of attorney-client relationships work out just fine.  This one didn’t.  The New York Law Journal’s Christine Simmons reports  that Justice Jeffrey Spinner in Suffolk County has dismissed a fee claim by Bryan L. Salamone & Associates:  ""Counsel has the insufferable temerity to actually admonish this Court for expressing its distress over the terms and conditions of Plaintiff’s over-reaching retainer agreement (clearly a contract of adhesion on its face), baldly stated that all of the terms thereof ‘…are all within the ambit of the law,’" Spinner said in response. "

The Salamone firm brought a collection suit in July 2012 against Melissa Cohen for $52,701: $10,540 in collection suit fees and $42,161 in fees and interest in an underlying divorce "at the rate of 18 (percent)" from February 2012.

"Spinner cited a 1985 case, Eikenberry v. Adirondack Spring Water, 65 NY2d 125, which found an agreement to pay attorney fees was subject to General Obligations Law §5-501 and its interest rate ceiling of 6 percent per year.

Since the Salamone agreement provided for interest at a rate of more than 6 percent a year, "the said agreement is found by this Court to be usurious," Spinner said in the May ruling.

He found the agreement unenforceable, reversed summary judgment in favor of Cohen and dismissed the law firm’s complaint with prejudice." "But in his ruling Thursday, Spinner said he again reviewed the firm’s billing and found it to be "facially outrageous and certainly bereft of reasonableness" while Cohen’s assertions are "factually at odds" with Salamone’s claims.

The judge also said the firm’s court papers used "an unpleasant, somewhat sarcastic and clearly condescending tone throughout, which, counsel is warned, borders upon conduct that may well be sanctionable."

Spinner said Wan scolded the court for failing to provide statutory and common law bases for certain findings, "even though the character of and deficiencies within the retainer were so painfully obvious on their face." "