Appeal from a judgment of the Justice Court of the Town of Chester, Orange County (Janet M. Haislip, J.), entered December 11, 2007. The judgment, after a nonjury trial, awarded plaintiff the principal sum of $1,497.50.

Judgment reversed without costs and matter remitted to the Justice Court for a new trial limited to the issue of damages.

Plaintiff seeks to recover the principal sum of $1,497.50 for legal services rendered in connection with an arbitration matter involving defendant. The evidence adduced at trial established that defendant had requested legal assistance from plaintiff on April 26, 2007, after defendant failed to prevail in an arbitration proceeding involving certain real property. At this first meeting, the parties discussed payment of a $7,500 retainer agreement. Defendant indicated to plaintiff that he did not have a check to pay the retainer fee. On April 30, 2007, defendant returned to plaintiff's office and met with attorneys Gary Greenwald and Thomas Landrigan. They discussed defendant's legal issues, and defendant executed a retainer agreement. The agreement provided that defendant was "required to pay the firm an advance retainer in the amount of $7,500 . . . before the firm will begin representing the client." Defendant did not pay plaintiff the retainer fee. Nevertheless, plaintiff's witness established that legal work commenced and defendant wanted to know what plaintiff was going to do to protect his interest with respect to the underlying arbitration matter. When the parties spoke about payment of the retainer fee, defendant indicated that he would pay plaintiff. The Justice Court found defendant's testimony that he did not retain plaintiff to represent him to be incredible. The court held that defendant retained plaintiff to perform legal services and awarded plaintiff the principal sum of $1,497.50.

In our view, the particular language in the retainer agreement required defendant to pay [*2]the sum of $7,500 as a condition precedent to plaintiff being retained by defendant. Since defendant did not make said payment, the retainer agreement is not controlling. However, a written retainer agreement is not essential to the formation of an agreement for the performance of legal services or the rendition of legal advice; the court may look at the words and actions of the parties to ascertain if an attorney-client relationship was formed (see C.K. Indus. Corp. v C.M. Indus. Corp., 213 AD2d 846, 847-848 [1995]), and an attorney is not precluded from recovering in quantum meruit (see Seth Rubenstein, P.C. v Ganea, 41 AD3d 54, 62 [2007]). The evidence adduced at trial establishes that defendant was aware of the work being done on his behalf after the initial meeting held on April 26, 2007, and defendant led plaintiff to believe it was being hired to represent him. Consequently, plaintiff is entitled to recover the reasonable value of its legal services in quantum meruit (see Defilippo v Cascone, 20 Misc 3d 132[A], 2008 NY Slip Op 51445[U] [App Term, 2d & 11th Jud Dists 2008]). However, the record is devoid of any proof establishing the reasonable value of the services rendered by plaintiff. Therefore, the judgment is reversed and the matter is remitted to the Justice Court for a new trial limited to the issue of the reasonable value of plaintiff's services.

Tanenbaum, J.P., Molia and LaCava, JJ., concur.
Decision Date: February 20, 2009