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FIFTH DIVISION July 10, 2009
Nos. 1-08-2761 & 1-08-2762 (consolidated)  
CLYDE ENGLE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. FOLEY AND LARDNER, LLP, Defendant-Appellee (Siobhan Engle, Intervenor-Appellant).  ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )  Appeal from the Circuit Court of Cook County. No. 07 CH 17266 The Honorable Mary Anne Mason, Judge Presiding.  

PRESIDING JUSTICE FITZGERALD SMITH delivered the opinion of the court:
Plaintiff-appellant Clyde Engle (Engle) sought declaratory, injunctive and other relief against defendant-appellee Foley & Lardner, LLP (Foley), with respect to contractual agreements made between the parties regarding attorney fees.  Intervenor-appellant Siobhan Engle (Siobhan), Clyde's wife and owner of stock at issue, intervened.  Although Engle and Siobhan initially received a temporary restraining order to prevent Foley from foreclosing on certain assets, the trial court, following a hearing, denied their motion for preliminary injunction and dissolved the temporary restraining order.  
Engle and Siobhan appeal, making several contentions of trial court error, including a failure to consider evidence that showed Foley breached its obligation and held their interest "hostage," a failure to order an accounting, a misunderstanding of the presumption of undue influence, a disregard of evidence that showed an unenforceable contract, and a failure to apply the proper standard on a motion for preliminary injunction.  They ask that we reverse the trial court's decision and find that their motion for preliminary injunction should be granted "pending a decision on the merits," plus any costs or additional relief we deem proper.  For the following reasons, we affirm and dismiss the instant appeal.
BACKGROUND
Engle hired Foley to represent him in a cause of action filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by the Illinois Insurance Commissioner (liquidator action), regarding an insurance company in which Engle held an interest.  Initial damages in this suit were sought in the amount of $60 million; as the cause progressed, damages were estimated into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Engle and Foley's agreement was memorialized in a letter dated November 12, 1999, wherein Engle promised to pay Foley's invoices within 30 days.
Later, Foley also began representing Engle in a separate action occurring in Delaware.  By June 2000, Engle and Foley devised a new payment schedule, which resulted in discounted rates of service to Engle. However, even with these new rates, Engle fell behind in his payments of Foley's fees.  
In September 2001, Foley sent Engle a letter suggesting payment arrangements, including the possibility that Engle sell some of his assets to pay the charges in arrears.  The letter also stated that Engle would pay reasonable costs of collection, including attorney fees, if Foley sued Engle for collection, and noted that if Engle failed to make payment, he would not object to Foley withdrawing from the pending liquidator action and the Delaware suit.  Engle signed and returned the letter without any objection.
By February 28, 2002, Engle had still not yet paid the outstanding balance he owed to Foley, nor any of the newly incurred fees for services performed between September 2001 and February 2002.  On that date, Foley sent Engle another letter informing him of this and that the amount owed was now $1,014,147.25.  Foley proposed another amended fee agreement, wherein Engle would agree to a plan to pay this principal amount owed by April 5, 2002 via "mutually acceptable instruments to enforce the payment schedule," and Engle would not object to Foley's withdrawal from the pending liquidator action if he did not make the payments.1  Again, Engle agreed and signed this letter without objection.  
Engle failed to make any payment by April 5, 2002.  On May 2, 2002, Foley sent Engle a notice of Foley's intent to withdraw as counsel of record in the liquidator action and suggested that Engle retain new counsel within the next two weeks, with Foley facilitating the transition. Foley sent a copy of this notice to Gerald Tierney, an attorney who was in-house counsel to various Engle-related entities, kept an office at the Bank of Lincolnwood (which Engle and Siobhan own), and had filed an appearance in the liquidator action on behalf of several Engle

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