Valley

The Mandatory Fee Arbitration Act (MFAA), under Business and Professions Code section 6200 et seq., provides a quick and inexpensive method for clients, at their option, to resolve fee disputes with their attorneys. 1 In this case, we consider whether a client may assert his MFAA arbitration rights—without actually availing himself of arbitration—to delay and ultimately prevent the resolution of a fee dispute with his former attorney. Under section 6201, subdivision (a) (§ 6201(a)), the attorney must provide written notice of the client’s right to arbitration under the MFAA at or before the time the attorney serves a lawsuit on the client. As our Supreme Court has recently observed, “in the typical MFAA case, the client receives [the section 6201(a) notice] and thereafter expressly chooses either to proceed under the MFAA or not.” (Aguilar v. Lerner (2004) 32 Cal.4th 974, 989 [ 12 Cal.Rptr.3d 287 , 88 P.3d 24 ].) The case before us, however, is far from the “typical MFAA case.”

The Law Offices of Dixon R. Howell, doing business as Business Law Group (Law Firm or Firm) sued Michael W. Valley (Client) on a promissory note that he had signed to memorialize an obligation for…