Our Cases

Pro-Bono

Pending Cases | 2007 - 2009 | Pre-2006 | Pro-Bono

The cases we’ve described elsewhere on this site are typically the larger cases we handle. But, we receive hundreds of calls each year from clients who have much smaller cases. Our workload and the fact that we are not a public service agency (we do, after all, have to pay salaries and rent, etc), means that we can only take a small fraction of the valid cases we’re presented. However, there are cases in which the wrongs of the lawyer are so egregious, and the wrong inflicted on the client is so sad that we take the case on either a pro bono basis, or for a very small fee. Here are just a few of those cases.

Sonoma County, California
Legal Malpractice and Overbilling: Employment Dispute
Case pending:

Legal malpractice case against a small firm for accepting and prosecuting an employment case (wrongful discharge) on behalf of two individuals who were in a conflict of interest. The attorneys knew the case had no value and should never have been filed, but they churned the case for over $100,000 in fees. After the attorneys all but bankrupted the clients, they withdrew, and then sued their former clients for the balance owed. The former clients’ cross-claim includes claims of fraud and a demand for punitive damages. The case is pending.

Los Angeles, California
Case Pending
Fee dispute on a Disability Benefits case

Fee dispute involving a Southern California solo practitioner for charging and collecting an unconscionable fee for minimal work on a claim for disability benefits. The demand for unconscionable fees, coupled with a fee agreement containing an illegal provision, resulted in the client paying the firm’s exorbitant fees out of the client’ disability insurance benefits over a six year period. The firm also misled the client into believing that certain fees would be waived, while collecting the purportedly waived fees. The case is complex, hard-fought, and involves such thorny legal issues as an attorney’s duties to a client regarding the retainer agreement.

San Francisco, California
Fee Dispute: Divorce Case
Case Settled

We represented a Vietnamese woman who was essentially brought over to this country by a man she met on the internet. They married and he turned out to be physically and emotionally abusive and she sought a divorce. She scraped together $3,000 (borrowing from some friends and good Samaritans) to get her divorce and went to a local attorney active in (preying upon might be a better term) the Vietnamese community. The lawyer took her $3,000 retainer and did nothing for her. She tried to get her money back and he concocted some work that he claimed he did and actually claimed she owed him money. After six months of battling with the attorney (expending perhaps $40,000 of our time in the process), we got her the full retainer back plus some money, and she was able to get a new attorney and her divorce.

Northern California
Legal Malpractice: Criminal Case
Case Settled

In one of only two criminal legal malpractice cases we’ve ever handled, we went after a referral agency who prey on people accused of criminals and the attorney to who the case was referred. This particular agency, called Crime Attorneys, represented itself on its website as a California statewide law firm with extraordinary and deep expertise, when in fact, it was nothing more than a referral service simply referring cases to lawyers who received a small percentage of the fees that were paid to the referring agency. The details of what happened to the gentleman who ended up as our client are unimportant except to say that his case was handled abominably and he ended up serving time when his case likely should have been dismissed. We went after both the attorney who handled the case and the referral agency. We achieved a significant settlement from the attorney, and while we recovered no money from the referral agency, we were instrumental in getting the authorities to shut down the website, and were part of the reason the person who was running the scam to file personal bankruptcy.