Lawyer Suspended for Abandoning Client and Failing to Return Attorney's Fees
The Supreme Court suspended a lawyer for one year and ordered him to return P61,500 in fees after he withdrew from his client's cases without notice.
A client pays a lawyer, reposes trust, and expects the case to move. When Atty. Jose R. Hidalgo stopped appearing in his client's collection cases and effectively left them to be dismissed, the Supreme Court did more than scold him: it suspended him from practice and ordered him to give the money back. The ruling in Chang v. Atty. Hidalgo (A.C. No. 6934, April 6, 2016) is a compact lesson on what a retainer does — and does not — entitle a lawyer to do.
The facts: paid, then abandoned
Helen Chang engaged Atty. Hidalgo as counsel in several collection cases pending in different courts. Under their contract, she issued five checks totaling P52,000.00, and he separately collected P9,500.00 as a "hearing fee" — P61,500.00 in all. Chang alleged that he never attended any hearing, that he sent another lawyer without her consent, and that this substitute also failed to appear. The cases were dismissed.
Atty. Hidalgo denied the charges. In a handwritten, unverified comment that the Investigating
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