Esther Panitch of The Panitch Law Group, Atlanta. (Courtesy photo)

The ex-wife of imprisoned Atlanta city contractor Elvin "E.R." Mitchell is on the hook for $120,000 in legal fees owed to the attorney who handled her divorce, according to a recent court filing.

Panitch Law Group principal Esther Panitch, who represented Marjorie Mitchell in the divorce and served as her spokeswoman until withdrawing from the case in 2018, sued her former client in Fulton County State Court last year seeking more than $190,000 in fees.

At the time, Panitch said said she had already been paid more than $73,500 for her services, billing Mitchell at an hourly rate of $337.50 for attorney services and $150 for paralegal work, plus expenses.

According to an application to confirm the State Bar of Georgia arbitration award filed with the court last week, Mitchell disputed the amount of fees she owed to Panitch following the couple's 2018 divorce. Mitchell filed legal malpractice counterclaims against her former lawyer, which she subsequently dropped.

Mitchell suggested they take the dispute to arbitration at the state Bar, Panitch said, "and I thought that was a good idea."

Panitch said she has already recouped some of the additional funds she sought outside of the arbitration.

The attorney who represented Mitchell at the bar arbitration, Blitch Law principal James Blitch IV, declined to publicly discuss the case. Mitchell declined to comment.

The three-member arbitration panel—John Sparks Sr., Howard Simmons and Gloria Smiley—said in their Jan. 24 ruling that a written, hourly fee contract existed between the parties and awarded $120,051 "in addition to all sums previously paid by the petitioner to the respondent."

According to the application seeking to confirm the award, Mitchell has said she will not pay the fees voluntarily and has refused to let her attorney accept service, requiring Panitch to hire a private process server to deliver the judgment.

Panitch said that, because of the COVID-19 outbreak, she has had difficulty serving Mitchell. She also said Mitchell has the means to pay the judgment.

"If she weren't good for it, I wouldn't waste my time," she said.

Panitch's petition asks Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox Jr. to schedule a hearing on the matter and award the arbitration award plus any additional fees and expenses Panitch incurs attempting to collect it.    

The Mitchells were married for 28 years when Marjorie Mitchell filed for divorce after her husband pleaded guilty for his role after he was caught up in a federal investigation into corruption in awarding contracts by the city of Atlanta. 

Their marriage ended in 2018 after a four-day divorce trial, which Panitch handled.

E.R. Mitchell pleaded guilty to paying more than $1 million in bribes to obtain city contracts. Another contractor, Charles Richards Jr. and the city's former purchasing officer, Adam Smith, also pleaded guilty in the federal investigation.

According to her divorce suit, Mitchell's husband mortgaged two homes belonging to the couple and raided their children's trust funds prior to his indictment on bribery charges.

A co-defendant of E.R. Mitchell in the bribery cases, political consultant the Rev. Mitzi Bickers, also was named in the divorce action as someone who might hold interests that Marjorie Mitchell would have a claim to. Bickers was slated to stand trial this month, but that has been continued until June due to the pandemic.