Vaidik, J.
Case Summary
When Kara A. Davis (“Mother”) was represented by counsel, she asked the trial court to order Gregory W. Brown (“Father”) to pay her appellate attorney fees. Before the court ruled on Mother’s request, she fired her attorney. Mother’s attorney sought to intervene in order to seek the fees from Father. Mother and Father then filed with the court an agreed order, which provided that Mother withdrew her request for appellate attorney fees from Father and Father agreed to pay a portion of the fees. Despite this agreement, the court allowed Mother’s attorney to intervene and ordered Father to pay all of Mother’s appellate attorney fees. Father now appeals.
We reverse. An attorney cannot litigate an award of attorney fees “separate and apart” from the client. Accordingly, once Mother withdrew her petition for appellate attorney fees from Father, Mother’s attorney was not allowed to seek fees from Father on her own. We therefore reverse the trial court’s order and remand this case with instructions for the court to order Father to pay a portion of Mother’s attorney fees in accordance with their agreed order. To the extent Mother’s attorney is still owed fees, she may seek them from Mother.
…
… Kavadias believes that this statute gives her the right to pursue attorney fees against Father even though Mother fired her and withdrew her petitions. But this statute only provides that attorneys may enforce attorney-fee orders in their own name; it does not authorize attorneys to request attorney fees in their own name.
….
Here, when Kavadias sought to intervene, the trial court had not yet ruled on Mother’s petitions for appellate attorney fees from Father. And before the trial court ruled on Kavadias’s petition to intervene, Mother withdrew her petitions for appellate attorney fees from Father. Because Mother was no longer asking the trial court to order Father to pay her fees, Kavadias did not have a right, “separate and apart” from Mother, to request them from Father. The trial court therefore erred by (1) allowing Kavadias to intervene pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 24(A)(2); (2) ordering Father to pay all of Mother’s appellate attorney fees; and (3) ordering Father to pay $18,353.78 of Mother’s attorney fees for new trial-court matters that arose in the paternity case from October 31, 2017, to March 5, 2019. Accordingly, we vacate the trial court’s June 2019 order and remand this case to the trial court. On remand, the trial court shall approve all parts of the agreed order, including Father’s agreement to pay $6,500 of Mother’s attorney fees for the first appeal and $1,000 of Mother’s attorney fees for the second appeal. [Footnote omitted.] To the extent Kavadias is still owed attorney fees for her services in the paternity case, she may seek them from Mother, her client.
Reversed and remanded.
Najam, J., and Tavitas, J., concur.