What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California
My wife had a small business and we took on an investor who was going to direct us on building a new manufacturing facility/business different from our own. He directed us to his friends, who were vendors, and ended up over charging us around $500k.
We ended up going out of business and our investor sued us for return of a loan. We hired an attorney who was going to file a counter suit because we figured if he had to bring all of his crooked friends in, he'd drop the case. We provided names, dates, details, invoices, to our atty and even had witnesses come in for interviews - handled by his paralegal.
We were defrauded out of well over $1m - and we had the witnesses to prove it.
We were constantly told how well the counter suit was coming, etc... but they never produced one, or filed one. We paid our atty close to $30k. About a month (or less) before going to trial the paralegal handling our case, and supposedly writing our counter suit, was fired. Our atty told us he was doing us a "favor" by representing us at trial.
He knew virtually nothing about the case, and spent the last two weekends looking at it before trial. He was unprepared, and didn't bring in any documents in support of our case.
We lost. The Judge found my wife and I personally liable for a loan that never happened. Our atty didn't appeal the case. We now have a judgement of $160k on our home. He said, not to worry, we can always declare BK.
So what I have is this,
1. An atty who took payment for the production of a counter suit who never prepared one.
2. A fired paralegal who may not even have been one - I checked state records and she's not listed.
3. An atty who didn't bring any evidence or supporting documents to court.
4. An atty who didn't appeal the verdict.
5. We ended up with a lien on our home.
6. Apparently we are unable to remove a court ordered lien through BK - which we never should have had to do to begin with.
All of the legal advice he gave was wrong, all of the legal service he gave, was half hearted at best, fraudulent at worst.
I would like to find more than one atty in my area who handles legal malpractice. Can you offer any suggestions?
My wife had a small business and we took on an investor who was going to direct us on building a new manufacturing facility/business different from our own. He directed us to his friends, who were vendors, and ended up over charging us around $500k.
We ended up going out of business and our investor sued us for return of a loan. We hired an attorney who was going to file a counter suit because we figured if he had to bring all of his crooked friends in, he'd drop the case. We provided names, dates, details, invoices, to our atty and even had witnesses come in for interviews - handled by his paralegal.
We were defrauded out of well over $1m - and we had the witnesses to prove it.
We were constantly told how well the counter suit was coming, etc... but they never produced one, or filed one. We paid our atty close to $30k. About a month (or less) before going to trial the paralegal handling our case, and supposedly writing our counter suit, was fired. Our atty told us he was doing us a "favor" by representing us at trial.
He knew virtually nothing about the case, and spent the last two weekends looking at it before trial. He was unprepared, and didn't bring in any documents in support of our case.
We lost. The Judge found my wife and I personally liable for a loan that never happened. Our atty didn't appeal the case. We now have a judgement of $160k on our home. He said, not to worry, we can always declare BK.
So what I have is this,
1. An atty who took payment for the production of a counter suit who never prepared one.
2. A fired paralegal who may not even have been one - I checked state records and she's not listed.
3. An atty who didn't bring any evidence or supporting documents to court.
4. An atty who didn't appeal the verdict.
5. We ended up with a lien on our home.
6. Apparently we are unable to remove a court ordered lien through BK - which we never should have had to do to begin with.
All of the legal advice he gave was wrong, all of the legal service he gave, was half hearted at best, fraudulent at worst.
I would like to find more than one atty in my area who handles legal malpractice. Can you offer any suggestions?
