OK. We won our small claims case against this lawyer's client. Client rep-ed himself in small claims court and my feeling is lawyer has a delusional liar on his hands as a client--guy came to court w/ absolutely no evidence for his defense, but simply called everyone else involved a liar. We had stacks of organized exhibits for our case. Judge in judgment pointed out several instances where he thought defendant was lying and was wholly not credible in the ridiculous claims he made. Anyhow, after we got our judgment, I wrote and asked lawyer when is his client going to pay us? We requested that he now drop the countersuit he has against us (which was filed the day before our case came to trial and was not lumped into the same case in court), and we asked that the lien against our property be dropped since it was for the amount we had disputed in court and we'd won where the judge declared our entire contract void (for defendant's fraud).

Lawyer was quick to reply that the lien had actually been released 2 months ago (although we got no notice of that). But gave no reply about when we're to be paid judgment and if counterclaims are going to be dropped.

What makes us suspicious of the lawyer's motives is why did he only answer 2 of the 3 items we asked about? And with the lien release seemingly good news, we suspect somehow it's to throw us off guard of some bad news. I know lawyers posture one way with opposition and talk other stuff behind closed doors w/ their client.

Can any lawyers out there offer any possible insight onto this?

His client is the typical kind of guy who will probably fight not to pay us, will probably try to appeal, will probably try to hide in bankruptcy, and who is oftentimes completely delusional as to his own greatness and unconscionable in how he treats others. Along with the counterclaim he is trying to say we were extorting him although I've long ago established the nexus between my damages requests and the things he is claiming as extortion.

What should our next communication with lawyer be?

Am not an attorney, but was a paralegal who occasionally worked for a collection attorney.

Did you get a judgment against the individual in your case signed by the Judge? If you did, you can start collection proceedings against the defendant. If you don't know how to do this, depending on the amount involved, would suggest you hire a collection attorney to go after him for the amount. If it is a sizeable amount, it would be well worth it.

Lawyer most likely does not know if the client even plans on paying, Most judgements are never actually fully collected, many are never paid at all.

Most likely they don't plan to drop the counter suit hoping they get lucky and win a case
Your winning your case may help you in counter suit, but does not stop it.