Connecticut lawyers can no longer directly claim a portion of their clients’ proceeds from a divorce judgment in order to collect legal fees and costs, according to the Connecticut Supreme Court.
The decision in Olszewski v. Jordan reverses the Appellate Court, and evidently makes Connecticut the first state in the nation to rule that lawyers can’t use so-called attorney charging liens as a tool to collect family case fees. Justice Peter Zarella, writing for a unanimous court, found that the use of such liens for legal fees in divorce cases are not supported by case law from three centuries or by attorney ethics rules.
