Ok, I've never really been involved in a court case and I really don't know much about the technical side of law, I just manage to stay out of trouble with the law . . . I'm hoping someone real knowledge can help me out. Here's my question: My main character is getting sued and is upset with his lawyer/firm, but can't, for many reasons, get rid of them. Would it be allowable and or plausible for him to have a secondary counsel to help with reasearch, etc? Does this ever happen that someone would have multiple firms for representation? If it is totally unallowable and/or not plausible - is there a loophole? -- a way to get other counsel unofficially involved on a technical level to where the secondary counsel would have full knowledge of what went on in and out of court on the case?
For most democratic counties the short answer is, you can get rid of your lawyer at any time. Even people who have been appointed lawyers by the government have the right to request a new lawyer if they feel that they are not being represented properly. If for some reason he has to be represented by that particular lawyer, there would still be nothing preventing him from paying out of his own pocket to get advice from another lawyer. In this case the primary lawyer would either not allow the secondary lawyer to actively represent the client in court, or in extreme cases would drop the client and stop representing them. Unless the client is a minor (under the age of responsibility which varies from country to country - 7 in Nigeria is the lowest 18 in most US states is the highest) or the judge sees some other reason to close the proceedings (protecting the victim in cases of rape is often one reason - cases involving trade secrets is another) then anybody who wanted to come could sit in on the case, including any secondary lawyers. If you want more specifics, let us know where exactly this story is taking place and any reasons that he has to stick with his existing lawyer and we can get you some more details. Hope this helps
there's no legal reason why a person can't 'fire' his own lawyer... IF he's paying his fees... if it's a court-appointed one, then the judge has to allow it and will need sufficient reason to do do... as we saw with o. j.'s 'dream team' and many other high profile cases, a plaintiff or defendant will often have several law firms representing him... but it would make no sense whatever for him to hire another attorney, without the approval of his existing one... so, if you want your plot to be believable, you'll have to deal with reality...
