Fourth District, Division 1 So Holds in Unpublished Decision.
It is probably not a good idea to challenge the fees of a court-appointed attorney in a contentious conservatorship battle. The attorney is usually having to sort out conflicting heat from different sides, so that counsel’s application for fees will usually be granted unless exorbitant in nature or there are no assets to satisfy payment of the requested fees. That is exactly what happened in Conservatorship of Becerra, Case No. D053574 (4th Dist., Div. 1 June 17, 2009) (unpublished).
There, the lower court awarded $10,222 in attorney’s fees to an attorney appointed to represent a conservatee where there were dueling conservatorship petitions festering in the case. The trial court determined that the conservatee needed court-appointed counsel pursuant to Probate Code section 1471(b), which allows such an appointment when it would be “helpful to the resolution of the matter or … necessary to protect [conservatee’s] interests.” Once such legal counsel has been furnished, the court fixes a reasonable sum for compensation and expenses of counsel under section 1472(a)(1), subject further to the person’s ability to pay.
The disgruntled initial conservatorship petitioner challenged the fee award. It did not go very far. The probate court was well aware about the acrimonious nature of the conservatorship proceedings and could gauge the worth conferred by the court-appointed attorney. Also, the attorney was only involved in a discrete portion of the proceedings, but in a segment where there was need for a neutral party to represent the conservatee at the time. The trust from which fees were ordered paid had sufficient assets, so that nothing showed the lower court abused its discretion in paying court-appointed counsel.