When your lawyer won't call you back...

What do you do, when your own lawyer won't call you back?

Let's say that you have an important, almost immediate, nearly urgent need for legal advice. You are facing a deadline, and you need to speak with your lawyer.

You call and call, leaving messages at his office. You fax him, asking him to call you. With a critical deadline approaching that could have severe consequences, hard and more expensive to reverse, what do you do?

Keep calling. Keep an accurate list of every attempt to reach him and keep a copy of all faxes and emails. Then you'd better get a different lawyer, if you can afford it, or hotfoot it into court and represent yourself.

Take your list with you - to show the judge the record of your attempts to reach your lawyer. Do the best you can to defend yourself and your position. Buy some time by asking for a continuance, if you need to, so that you can find an attorney who will represent you.

And next? Consider the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois (ARDC) (http://www.iardc.org/). Contact the ARDC and ask how they can help you.

If your attorney no longer wishes to represent you, then he needs to say so. It is just not okay to ignore your calls or to fail to return at least one of them. If he wishes to resign from serving you, then he should send you a letter. Such a letter takes about five minutes to produce and $0.44 to mail. Big deal!