Florida Man Ditched By Five Lawyers ‘Forfeits’ Public Counsel

The trial court ran out of lawyers.

An indigent man contesting a parental rights dispute effectively “forfeited” his right to public counsel after at least five lawyers assigned to him dropped him as a client for not following their advice or threatening them, a Florida appeals court ruled Wednesday.

“There is a fine line between being a ‘difficult client’ and being a client whose conduct forfeits the right to court-appointed counsel,” Judge Alan Orantes Forst wrote for unanimous the Fourth District Court of Appeals panel.

The issue of first impression boiled down to whether a client who claims to ...