The count against Kevin Reddington that everyone is quoting comes down to a text message sent on March 31, 2021, a week before the federal corruption trial of Jasiel Correia: “Do NOT tell Me You are all broke. They can all enjoy Visiting you in Leavenworth for the next thirty years.” Bar Counsel’s petition alleges that Reddington, having agreed to a $150,000 flat fee three years earlier, demanded another $50,000 and 20 percent of Correia’s company on the eve of trial. Reddington says the client is lying, the case changed, and 20 percent of a defunct app was worth nothing.
Set aside the tone, which is not itself a rule violation, and the question a hearing committee would actually decide is a narrow one: may a Massachusetts lawyer change a flat fee in the middle of a representation, and if so, how? The rules answer that question with some precision, and the answer is not the one either side would prefer.
The fee had to be in writing
Start with the easiest count to prove. Since 2013, Rule 1.5(b) of the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct has required that the scope of the representation and the basis or rate of the fee be communicated to the client in writing before or within a reasonable time after the representation begins. The exceptions are narrow: a single-session consultation, or a client the lawyer has regularly represented on the same basis. A three-year federal criminal defense is neither.
The petition alleges the $150,000 fee was oral. If that is true, the violation is complete regardless of anything that happened later, and it is the kind of violation Bar Counsel proves with the absence of a document. It is also, standing alone, a minor one. Lawyers are disciplined for missing fee agreements every year, and the sanction is usually an admonition unless the missing writing enabled something worse. Here, it is alleged to have enabled exactly what the writing requirement exists to prevent: a dispute, at the worst possible moment, about what the deal was.
Can a flat fee go up?
Yes, in principle. A fee agreement is a contract, and contracts can be amended. But a lawyer’s contract with a client is not an ordinary contract, and a change in the lawyer’s favor mid-representation is examined under three rules at once.
Rule 1.5(a) forbids a fee that is “clearly excessive,” judged by eight factors: the time and labor required and the difficulty of the questions; whether the work precludes other employment; the fee customarily charged locally for similar services; the amount involved and the results obtained; time limitations imposed by the client or circumstances; the nature and length of the relationship; the lawyer’s experience, reputation and ability; and whether the fee is fixed or contingent. The leading case is Matter of Fordham, 423 Mass. 481 (1996), where a lawyer charged more than $50,000 for a first-offense drunk-driving defense at an hourly rate no one called unreasonable, won the case, and was disciplined anyway because the total was several times what experienced lawyers charged for the same work. Bar Counsel’s own guidance stresses that the rule applies to flat fees as much as hourly ones, and that a client’s eyes-open agreement to a fee does not save it.
That cuts in an unexpected direction here. A $200,000 fee for a month-long federal public corruption trial with a superseding indictment, tried by a lawyer of Reddington’s experience, is not clearly excessive by any Massachusetts measure. Reddington’s own 2024 account was that his normal fee for such a case would be $250,000. If the only question were whether $200,000 plus a share of SnoOwl was too much for the work, Bar Counsel would likely lose. The case is not about the amount.
Rule 1.8(a) is the second rule, and it is the one the SnoOwl demand implicates. A lawyer may not enter into a business transaction with a client, or acquire an ownership interest adverse to the client, unless the terms are fair and reasonable and fully disclosed in writing, the client is advised in writing to seek independent counsel and given the chance to, and the client consents in writing. A demand for 20 percent of a client’s company as a legal fee is a business transaction with a client. A text message a week before trial is not the process Rule 1.8(a) describes. If the petition proves the demand was made, this is the rule it violates, whether or not the equity was worth anything. Reddington’s “20 percent of nothing is nothing” is an argument about damages, and bar discipline does not require damages.
Rule 1.5(d) is the third, and it is a closer question. The rule flatly prohibits “a contingent fee for representing a defendant in a criminal case.” An equity stake is not a contingent fee in the classic sense; it does not depend on the verdict. But a percentage of a company whose value depended heavily on whether its founder went to prison is a fee whose worth turns on the outcome, and a hearing committee could see it that way. Bar Counsel does not need this theory to make out a violation, and may not have pleaded it. It is the theory that would make the count serious rather than technical.
The timing is the case
What distinguishes an ordinary fee renegotiation from the conduct alleged is when it happened. A lawyer who tells a client in month two that the case has grown and the fee must grow with it, puts the new terms in writing, and gives the client a genuine chance to say no and find someone else, has done what the rules permit. A lawyer who says the same thing a week before trial, when no other lawyer could take the case and the court would not continue it, has presented the client with a choice that is not a choice.
Massachusetts has a line of discipline cases on exactly that pattern, and the rule they apply is not in Rule 1.5 at all. It is Rule 8.4(h), conduct that adversely reflects on fitness to practice, and Rule 1.16, which forbids withdrawing from a criminal case without leave of court, so that a threat to walk away on the eve of trial is a threat the lawyer cannot lawfully carry out. Whether the March 31 text was that, or was a frustrated lawyer telling a client to find the money he owed, is a question of fact for the committee, and it is the question on which count four will be won or lost.
Reddington’s defense, and what it needs
His public position has three parts, and each is a real defense if the facts support it.
The scope changed. Correia was indicted in October 2018 on the SnoOwl investor fraud. A superseding indictment in September 2019 added the marijuana extortion charges that became the center of the trial. If the original fee was for the first case and the second doubled the work, Rule 1.5(a)’s first factor supports a higher fee. The problem is not the argument; it is that the amendment was, on the petition’s account, made orally, late, and under pressure.
The client is lying about the amounts. Reddington has said he received far less than $150,000 and only about $4,000 of what he asked for at the end. Bar Counsel’s petition puts the paid figure above $115,000. That is a documents question. Fee records, bank deposits and the trust-account audit in counts one and two will answer it, and the fact that Bar Counsel has audited the account is why the petition states figures with confidence.
The equity was worthless. True and irrelevant. Rule 1.8(a) is about process, not price.
What a committee would likely do
On the writing requirement, find a violation. On the amount, probably not. On the SnoOwl demand, find a violation of Rule 1.8(a) if the text is authenticated, which Correia’s 2024 release of it makes likely. On the threat, decide credibility. The sanction for that combination, for a lawyer with fifty years at the bar and no prior discipline, would ordinarily be a public reprimand, unless the committee finds the eve-of-trial demand was coercive, in which case a term suspension is within the range.
Count four is not the count that should worry Reddington most. That is count three, where a prisoner paid $25,000 and, according to the petition, received a false letter about an appearance that had not been filed. A misrepresentation to a client is a Rule 8.4(c) charge, and it is the allegation the hearing committee will read first.
Can a Massachusetts lawyer raise a flat fee during a case?
Yes, if the change is put in writing, is not clearly excessive under Rule 1.5(a), and the client has a genuine opportunity to decline. A demand made on the eve of trial, when the client cannot change lawyers, is examined as coercion under Rules 1.16 and 8.4.
Do fee agreements have to be in writing in Massachusetts?
Yes. Rule 1.5(b) has required a writing since 2013, with narrow exceptions for single consultations and regular clients on standing terms.
Can a lawyer take a share of a client’s business as a fee?
Only by complying with Rule 1.8(a): fair terms fully disclosed in writing, written advice to consult independent counsel, and the client’s written consent. In a criminal case, an outcome-dependent stake also risks the ban on contingent fees.
Was $200,000 too much for the Correia trial?
Almost certainly not under the Rule 1.5(a) factors. A month-long federal corruption trial by a lawyer of Reddington’s experience commands fees in that range. The petition’s problem with the fee is how and when it was changed, not its size.
What is Reddington’s defense?
That the case grew from an investor-fraud matter into a public-corruption trial after a superseding indictment, that the client owed money he had not paid, that the amounts Correia cites are wrong, and that the SnoOwl stake was worthless.
What sanction would this count carry?
If proved as alleged, a public reprimand is the ordinary range for a lawyer with no prior discipline, with a suspension possible if the committee finds the eve-of-trial demand coercive.
Allegations from Bar Counsel’s petition as reported by Aguayo News (September 9, 2026) and the Fall River Reporter (September 11, 2026). Text messages as released by Correia and reported by the Herald News, July 2024. Reddington’s statements as reported by those outlets. Rule text from the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct, SJC Rule 3:07; Fordham verified against CourtListener; Rule 1.5(a) guidance from the Office of Bar Counsel’s published article on clearly excessive fees. The analysis of how a hearing committee would rule is this publication’s, not a prediction of the outcome. Kevin Reddington denies the allegations, and none has been proved. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.