How Many Times Did People Google Michael Lowy? A list of keywords is very telling about people's concerns regarding the legal profession. Click here
Michael Lowy Bar Complaint: Click here
Dear California State Bar,
This isn't a love letter. But you knew that.
Let's talk. Or rather, let me talk.
You know we are here. You know we have stories. You know some of them are going to make you angry and you will do something about the problem.
Some of the stories will make you smile and you will say, "Yes, perhaps he shouldn't have yelled at you, but it isn't anything we are going to take action on."
And some of them will be in a gray area and while we feel the sting of injustice, you say, "Not important enough to deal with. We have bigger fish to fry."
We'll come back to those fish later because you and I have communicated about those fish before.
Right now I want to tell you why we write, though it may seem self-evident.
We write to you because we need help. Sometimes we can fix things ourselves, but most often not. When we have a situation where our attorney threatens us, "If you don't sign this today, I am quitting.", we feel fear.
At first, this same attorney welcomed us with open arms. But that was when we opened our checkbooks for the first time. Not any more. Now we have become a pain, too much trouble. Now the new, new client gets the welcome arms and our calls go unanswered.
What We Expect When We Hire A Lawyer
This is a transcript from a courtoom in L.A. County. It is the first day of trial and the Petitioner is alone. The Judge is asking her why she had to terminate her attorney.
Listen in as she is grilled by the judge. She had a lot of expectations. Which ones would you have her give up? To have her calls returned? To prepare for trial? Do discovery? Not leave threatening messages on her machine?
Does she have a right to know why she was sanctioned? Hell, he neglected to even tell her she was being sanctioned. When he was finally terminated and the new attorney wanted to know what the sanctions were for he still would not tell her. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's listen in. Read the transcript and then I'll tell you the sad sanction story.
17 THE COURT: Here is what I want to tell you. You
18 better tell me every single thing that you think I need to
19 know.
20 THE PETITIONER: Okay. Okay. And I made some
21 copies of this list of reasons if you want one.
22 THE COURT: Do you want me to look at that?
23 The petitioner: I was going to just say them, but I
24 have them if you would want them.
25 THE COURT: If you feel that you can say them and
26 that that will articulate your issues, then you can
27 proceed any way you think is best.
28 THE PETITIONER: Okay. Failing to return E-mails
4
1 for many weeks until I relieved him on Monday, and then he
2 started sending a flurry of E-mails, claiming that he
3 legally could not stop working and couldn't return, and
4 wouldn't return my case file, unless he had a signed
5 substitution of attorney form. And that was after I
6 terminated him already. And he never told me about any
7 sanctions against me or even if there was a threat of
8 being sanctioned. He refused to return my files by
9 messenger when I requested them.
10 THE COURT: When did you first request your file?
11 THE PETITIONER: Excuse me?
12 The court: When did you first -- actually, you know
13 what I'm going to do. I'm going to have the parties stand
14 up and be sworn in. (parties are sworn in)
24 Is everything you have told me so far the
25 truth?
26 THE PETITIONER: Yes.
27 THE COURT: Go ahead and finish telling me what you
28 want me to know.
5
1 THE PETITIONER: Failing to return my phone calls
2 for many weeks until I have relieved him on Monday. And
3 then he started calling me a bunch. He threatened to quit
4 my entire case unless I signed the recent custody
5 stipulation.
6 THE COURT: So the custody issue is not settled
7 between you?
8 THE PETITIONER: It was. We ended up signing an
9 agreement, but he pressured me into doing that by
10 threatening to quit my entire case. And he left it on my
11 voice mail really shouting and a message threatening to
12 quit if I didn't sign it.
13 Putting a lot of pressure on me to agree to a
14 meager settlement because he realized he wasn't prepared
15 for this trial. Not engaging in discovery in general,
16 although in fairness to him, I have had -- I have been
17 short on funds for some of those efforts, but instead of
18 resigning or trying to make other financial arrangements
19 with me, he just ignored me and my case necessities.
20 Never discussed a witness list with me or an
21 exhibit list with me. Never discussed what to put in a
22 trial brief or even what would happen at trial or what
23 would take place or what to expect. He always seemed to
24 do whatever he did do at the eleventh hour and in a great
25 panic. And shifting tasks to me at the last minute. Not
26 telling me that he needed an extension for preparing the
27 trial brief due to his procrastination, not telling me
28 what he may have negotiated away in getting the other side
6
1 to agree to allow us to be late. And I notice also that
2 my ex-husband also late-served some documents Monday,
3 which shortens the time that my forensic and attorney
4 could have --
5 THE COURT: Tell me about that a little bit.
6 THE PETITIONER: It was to -- I haven't even seen
7 them yet, but on monday, i guess my forensic had a meeting
8 with his forensic. And some documents were exchanged, and
9 my forensic got some bank records that they hadn't had.
10 And I mean, that was just Monday.
11 And not telling me that he was allowing me to
12 be set up for a lawsuit trial because of totally
13 inadequate discovery and trial preparation. Allowing the
14 other side to get away with not disclosing in the
15 discovery process. No strategy plan on how to find
16 concealed assets that have been concealed. No well
17 articulated strategy plan for the entire case. Not
18 deposing my husband's business manager, not deposing the
19 band's business manager. Not skillfully deposing my
20 ex-husband on questions like concealed assets. Not
21 skillfully getting at how multiple corporations are used
22 to thwart wives and children when a band member is
23 undergoing a divorce and how monies are held back by their
24 confederates.
25 And that's about it, but it was -- I just --
26 it was, that all of this was ongoing and --
27 THE COURT: How long have you known --
28 The petitioner: -- it got to the point --
7
2 DeCarolis did a lousy job as your lawyer. Is that a fair
3 summary?
4 THE PETITIONER: Yes, but not only that. It was
5 that it -- he was non-communicative. I have literally
6 hundreds of E-mails that he never responded to. He would
7 go weeks and weeks -- literally weeks without any contact
8 at all and not returning my phone calls, not returning
9 correspondence to any E-mails. And I just -- I -- I --
10 it's -- no reasonable person could have allowed this to
11 continue and suffer a certain loss at trial because their
12 attorney didn't adequately prepare.
13 THE COURT: Did Mr. Decarolis tell you that you had
14 to sign this substitution of attorneys or did you sign it
15 voluntarily?
16 THE PETITIONER: He told me that I had to.
17 THE COURT: Let me ask you, why would you let him
18 off of your case, because you thought I would give you a
19 continuance?
20 THE PETITIONER: No. Because of all of these
21 reasons. There's no way I could have remained with him.
22 He remained out of touch. I --
23 THE COURT: And when did you first determine that
24 you thought that he was not being communicative with you?
25 THE PETITIONER: Really from right when he left
26 Trope and Trope and started his own firm. He went for
27 about three weeks without -- after he asked me to follow
28 him to his firm, I didn't hear from him for a few weeks.
8
1 And I wanted -- one reason I waited and I didn't terminate
2 him earlier is because I wanted to give him the benefit of
3 the doubt. And until there could no longer be any doubt.
4 THE COURT: At some point in time were you guys
5 working on negotiating a settlement of the non-custody
6 issues with frank Garfield?
7 THE PETITIONER: Yes.
8 THE COURT: When was the last time you went to see
9 Mr. Garfield?
10 THE PETITIONER: I don't know the date.
11 THE COURT: Well, was it in June?
12 THE PETITIONER: It was -- I think it might have
13 been this month.
14 THE COURT: In the month of July?
15 THE PETITIONER: Maybe.
16 THE COURT: Okay. And had your relationship reached
17 a total low when you felt pressured to sign the custody
18 agreements? Had your relationship with Mr. DeCarolis
19 reached like a complete burnout, if you will, for want of
20 a better way of saying it?
21 THE PETITIONER: I don't know if I would really
22 describe it that way. I was really -- I was scared, and
23 it made me very nervous the way that he threatened me.
24 THE COURT: Okay. And so he threatened you and said
25 you better sign this custody thing, and you felt very
26 threatened at that point in time; is that right?
27 The petitioner: I did and --
28 THE COURT: Okay. So had your relationship reached
9
1 a real low by that point in time?
2 THE PETITIONER: I guess so.
3 THE COURT: Well, I don't want you to guess. I want
4 you to tell me, you know, whether your relationship had
5 reached a real low by the time you signed off on the
6 custody deal?
7 THE PETITIONER: I had -- I thought at the time it
8 had but --
9 THE COURT: Why did you sign the custody deal then?
10 Do you not want the custody deal?
11 THE PETITIONER: Well, because he threatened to quit
12 the case. He said he was going to March in here and ask
13 to be taken off the case, and he didn't say -- he was
14 shouting. It was very ugly. And he told me that without
15 him, that my trial would be a disaster, and it was -- I
16 was scared to -- I was scared of the outcome of the trial
17 if I didn't have him, based on what he was telling me.
18 But now, I -- I feel that if I had kept him for trial,
19 that that would be a certain guaranteed loss at trial for
20 me.
21 THE COURT: So when you signed the custody
22 agreement, you knew your relationship with Mr. Decarolis
23 was at a low -- at a very low point. Is that -- would
24 that be a fair statement?
25 THE PETITIONER: Yes.
26 THE COURT: If zero was like no relationship, and
27 ten was like the best relationship, on that zero to ten,
28 where would you rank your relationship with Mr. Decarolis
10
1 at the time that you signed the custody agreement?
2 THE PETITIONER: I guess -- I guess a zero, but like
3 it had been throughout my entire -- the entire time that
4 he was representing me. It just -- it -- he would -- it
5 would go up and down because sometimes he would -- he
6 would call or E-mail, immediately respond to a call or an
7 e-mail and sound, you know, chipper and like he was on it,
8 and then that would last for a very short time. Then he
9 would disappear again. And then he would reappear, and it
10 just kept going like that. So -- but when he was present
11 for those times when he was responding, he kind of -- he
12 would give me hope that, you know, everything was being
13 taken care of and stuff.
14 When -- I've repeatedly -- repeatedly asked
15 him about these sanctions that happened in March or april.
16 I'm not sure. And he refuses to discuss it with me or
17 talk to me about it. He's never even told me about that.
18 The only way I know that there have been sanctions against
19 me are from letters and things that I have been forwarded
20 from his office by the other side. And every time i would
21 E-mail him to ask him what are they talking about
22 sanctions and legal fees and things like that, he would
23 never respond. Never once.
24 THE COURT: So that goes back now several months,
25 though, doesn't it?
26 THE PETITIONER: It does.
27 THE COURT: All right. And --
28 THE PETITIONER: And -- I'm sorry.
11
Let's stop here a minute. It pains me to tell you that you were told all these things about this attorney. And you did nothing. You said no, nothing to look into.
Ok. Let's move on. We'll be coming back to this case. Oh, the sanctions? Actually it was the attorney who was going to be sanctioned for $3500.00 for failure to do discovery. You see, the client gave him the information and he did nothing with it.
The other side filed a Motion to Compel. If she found out it was his fault he would hae had to pay the sanctions and report it to you. So, he neglected to tell her about the sanctions, went to court without her, and put the blame on her. She paid. We know you know this is wrong. What we don't understand is why, when we told you, you did nothing.
Moving on for now.
FRAUD
This one is my favorite. This one is about me, unlike the one above. This is the one that made me fall into my lawyer's arms. No, not like that. I almost fainted. He held me up.
We were at a settlement conference and Jeff Kaufman told the pro tem judge he and his client were going to commit perjury. He said, "Fraud is no big deal. Everyone does it."
This is what makes me feel faint. He's the same lawyer that asked if he should hit me over the head with a 2x4. Actually, Jeff, you did, but like a California wildfire, life comes back after trauma and thrives.
If this was ten years ago I would never name names. I would have been afraid or thought it impolite. The fear is gone and the naming of names is a necessary act.
And you didn't care even though we had proof. You said, "He can say what he wants in a settlement conference." Later on I found out he may not if it relates to a crime.
coming soon.....What Happens to People in Real Time, Real Life When The Bar Turns Its Head and Says, "Oh, Well, Too Bad, Better Luck Next Time" and leaves us wondering, "Where have I been all these years, slumbering under delusions of assistance and help and ethics from my lawyer?"