The topic of this blog post is Boobus Americanus as attorneys. In working in the legal field here in California for many years I have worked with quite a few attorneys. Some good ones to be sure. But I have also worked with some real “winners”.
Let’s examine this further. One attorney I used to work with is now facing federal charges for bribing a government employee, a federal one! And can you believe that the amount of the bribe was only $2,500.00? I could not believe it. Last June I was reading the local paper and what do I see but a news article detailing how this “attorney” who I can only describe as Mr. Magoo with a sheepskin, had just surrendered to federal authorities. He was turned in by his own client who was so shocked by what this attorney suggested that he immediately contacted another attorney who informed the authorities. The attorney suggested that the client pay money to bribe a federal agent to tell the local DA that the client had cooperated in an important investigation so that the client could have his charges dropped.
I worked with this attorney for several years and frankly I was only a little surprised when I read the news article last June. This guy was something else! The legal administrator who worked for his law offices had also previously faced some serious drug charges in the past. I checked him out online after hearing rumors about his past and this guy had gone all the way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding his conviction and lost. Big time case. They had worked together for around 20 years or so. I did not learn about any of this until after I stopped working with the both of them.
This guy was so stingy it is hard to describe. I was once working on a federal case for him and something needed to be filed in a Court that was over 100 miles away. And it had to be filed quickly. I suggested FedEx but he said that would cost too much money and sent it using the Postal Service. Needless to say it barely got filed in time. And all that just to save a few bucks. Not to make a federal case out of it but it was a federal case! What was Chintzy thinking?
I did not hear from Chintzy for several years when he called me a little over 4 years ago and wanted me to work on a probate case for him. I was going to turn him down at first but the housing bubble was starting to burst and business had been getting slow. The husband of a neighbor of his had passed on. I should have turned the case down as soon as I saw the will. This thing was so vague and ambiguous as to how the property was to be distributed, at first I thought perhaps they had obtained it from a “Crackerjack”® box. Instead of coming right out and stating that everything went to the wife it droned on and on without actually getting to the point. The husband had worked for a fairly large pharmaceutical company and had many stock options which had to be exercised before a certain date. Chintzy had me prepare what is called a spousal property petition as supposedly the wife got everything under the will.
Chintzy had a secretary who had worked for him for quite a few years. She is something else. She totally looks down on pot smokers (Chintzy, her boss, the “attorney” is or used to be a pot smoker) yet she cannot even tell the difference between the family law clerk’s office and the probate clerk’s office. She dropped off the probate paperwork at the family law clerk’s office, as a result the filing of the probate case was delayed by at least a week or two. I have been going to the same courthouse for years and have never had a problem. The sign clearly says family law clerk’s office, and the probate clerk’s office is on the same floor and has a sign, just on the other side. I mean Cheech and Chong could have read the sign and known where to go, and that is after they smoked up that whole van they were driving in Up in Smoke! She should probably try smoking pot, it might actually raise her IQ!
The petition eventually got filed, and at the hearing the Judge told Chintzy that because the will was a “pour-over” will and gave everything to a living trust that he could not grant the petition. So now I had to prepare a regular probate petition. It took several hearings to get it approved as the original will, which Chintzy had prepared said on the first page that the couple had 4 children, that was crossed out and the number 2 was written in. This guy was so cheap he didn’t want to print out another page with the correct number. Now that is cheap!! This guy was not a penny pincher, he was a fraction of a penny pincher. Because Chintzy was so stingy he did not want to print out another page I had to prepare a declaration to satisfy the probate checkers.
And to top it all off, I was only paid about half of what I had been promised. Oh well as they say you learn something new ever day. As soon as I got the check I took it directly to the bank and cashed it. I was not taking any chances on the money not being there.
Working with attorneys has been a real eye opener. I look at it like playing cards. You never know what the next card will be. You could get an Ace, or even a Joker.
Or you could work with a pompous drunk. So out of it that they have no idea what is even going on in their law office. They attract bad cases like poop attracts flies. All show and no go. I worked with one attorney who actually spent more money on a case involving a trust than what the trust had in the bank! Incredible. Most attorneys use the services of an attorney service, who for a flat monthly fee, does all of their routine filings for them. This guy paid a service from $50-75.00 for each document that they filed with the Court! Of course the owner of the service was his buddy. He had another guy who had an office downstairs that he worked with who used to prepare trusts for some of the rich people who lived in coastal Orange County. This guy charged $200.00 just to make 4 copies of a trust, not to prepare the trust, just make copies. That is $50.00 just for a copy! And the trust guy was not even a licensed attorney!
He was describing one probate case to me and he was coming off just like Clarence Darrow. He was doing this and that for his client. When I looked the case up his client had never even been named the Executor, and in fact there were NO assets in that probate estate. This guy was something else.
His office manager was his girlfriend. When I started working there I was speaking with his legal secretary who asked me if I knew that when he and the office manager went on vacation, which was about every other week, that they were both together. I told her that I had kind of figured that out already. She told me flat out, “You do not want to work here.” I eventually left after several months as I was not getting the amount of work that I was promised, among other things.
Funny thing is the guy was always accusing me of talking about his cases in public, when in fact I never mentioned anything. He must have been worried that I would figure out what he was doing. Honestly I think the guy was a neocon moron. And you know why? His girlfriend was okay looking, but an older blonde who had obviously spent too much time in the sun. And I hate to use a stereotype but she was a rather bitchy ditz. Now the legal secretary on the other hand was well endowed shall we say , and she actually knew what she was doing. I would have had her as my girlfriend if I was him. But what can I say, I have strange tastes.
Stay tuned. More to come on the subject of Boobus Americanus as attorneys.
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