Asked in Personal Injury and Civil Litigation for Pennsylvania

Q: I hired a lawyer and he submitted all my documents late and we lost. What can I do?

Long story short, I tried to answer a complaint filed towards me by myself but apparently I didn’t answer it correctly. So I had 20 days to submit an amended answer and I hired a lawyer. Many lawyers said they couldn’t get the answer in in time so I didn’t hire them. One firm said they could get the answer in and wanted to represent me. They ended up submitting all my documents a day late and the judge disregarded all the lawyer’s documents and went with my original answer and I lost by default.

1 Lawyer Answer
Tim Akpinar
Tim Akpinar
Answered
  • Little Neck, NY

A: A Pennsylvania attorney could advise best, but your question remains open for a week. In terms of your question about what you can do, one option is to review the file with an attorney. It would be difficult for any attorney to offer more detailed insight than that without seeing the file and sorting out exactly what happened. If it turns out there might be grounds for appeal, it would be best to identify those without delay. Time windows for appeals in general can be very short in general, nationwide, and grounds for appeals are usually very narrow. Good luck

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