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Local Electrician Finds Divorce Lawyer to Barter With

By Nicholas Rizzi | October 21, 2015 3:24pm | Updated on October 21, 2015 3:53pm

A Long Island divorce lawyer agreed to take on the case of a local electrician who ran out of money and put up signs around courthouses asking for representation in exchange for electrical work.

Lawyer Dalia Zaza took on Anthony Davino as a client after she saw his flier offering a trade for legal services on Facebook and met with him on Monday.

"I could definitely understand his plight having been through a lot of cases where clients run out of money mid-trail, I just really felt for him and his cause," she told DNAinfo New York, adding she never noticed the signs while at court. "Anthony was very genuine and sincere and so that really helped me make the decision to help him out even though I wasn't getting an upfront monetary agreement."

After he spent nearly $200,000 on a "contentious" three-year divorce and had his lawyer drop him because he ran out of money before his final six court dates, Davino "took to the streets" and posted 300 to 400 fliers around the Staten Island and Brooklyn courthouses seeking to barter to get new representation.

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"I'm pretty much dead in the water," Davino, 49, previously told DNAinfo New York. "The only thing I have left is my skill and there's got to be a lawyer who I can barter my services with."

Davino said that he got several calls after DNAinfo New York first reported on his fliers and ultimately decided to go with Zaza because she seemed to care the most when he talked to her.

"She was the only one genuinely interested in helping me," he said. "She was the only one who really showed some concern and was very knowledgeable about it."

Zaza taking on Davino as a client was first reported by the New York Post.

Davino — who's licensed in New York, New Jersey and Suffolk County and owns Davino Electrical Contracting — has been fighting for custody of his 9-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter and has been "bled dry" by the case as he tried to settle with his ex-wife. He ran out of money as he was finally nearing the finish line and decided to try and barter his way to a new lawyer, which he always thought would work out.

"I wouldn’t have done it if I thought it wasn’t going to work," he said. "It was a last ditch effort for me, I had no other options."

The pair haven't worked out the full arraignment yet but Zaza said she working on a list of repairs she needed in her home including some rewiring and upgrades for Davino.

"This is the most original offer that I've ever received for payment of services in my 10 years as a lawyer," she said. "I also respected that he came up with that rather than just coming up out and saying 'I just need free legal services.'"