Iowa Supreme Court Board of Professional Ethics & Conduct v. Hoffman

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding contingent fee excessive under DR 2-106 where recovery stemmed from insurance company’s voluntary payments of workers’ compensation claim, not lawyer’s efforts
• “[C]ontingent fee contracts are an accepted and enforceable manner of charging and determining attorney fees.”
• imposing six-month suspension when attorney tried to mislead the commission and the supreme court with untenable excuses for requesting over $37,000 in attorney fees after spending only twenty hours on a claim
• attorney’s charging excessive fee warranted six month suspension where attorney attempted to mislead grievance commission and supreme court with untenable excuses for seeking such an excessive fee
• “Respondent’s ethical violation in attempting to collect an excessive fee is compounded by his attempt to mislead the grievance commission and this court with untenable excuses for seeking such a fee.”
• “[C]hanges in the attending circumstances . . . rendered the thirty-three percent contingent fee unreasonable and excessive.” (Emphasis added.)

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).