AND WE ARE BACK TO CONSIDERING FAMILY LAW REAL PROPERTY ATTORNEY LIENS (FLARPLS) TO GET PAID

Written by Leslie L. Abrigo^*

With the current rise in costs of living, the average client may not be able to afford to retain and keep experienced counsel through the divorce process. You may have also recently noticed that with the rise of inflation, many divorcing parties are unable to refinance community mortgage debt into their own names to perform a buyout of the other spouse and/or to equalize the division of the martial estate. This means that many parties are now forced to sell their real property in order to equalize the division of marital assets and debts. This transaction, however, will not happen until the end of the case via settlement or trial. Adding calendaring delays that the average client will have to deal with if your county is one with a backed-up family court calendar, you may not get an attorney fees award for your client until months after filing a motion, and then you may further be the recipient of a court ordered payment plan with the standard acceleration clause. I won’t get into the added costs of having to enforce those orders. As you probably know, enforcement of court orders stacks on additional attorney time and sometimes a loss of money for the attorney.

In your practice, you may have heard of the Family Law Attorney Real Property Lien (FLARPL). The FLARPL is a lien that is secured against the client’s interest in community real property. As stated under Family Code section 2033:

The FLARPL raises alarms for attorneys (and the State Bar) because not only must you be careful to follow Rules of Professional Conduct to meet your ethical and fiduciary duties to your client, but you must strictly adhere to the code so that your client meets their fiduciary obligation to their former spouse. A FLARPL may give you an alternative to help your clients finance the costs of litigation. As a business owner and attorney, you will have to put on both hats to determine whether a FLARPL is the way to go getting paid fees owed to your office.