Boobus Americanus and California attorneys

Hello again loyal readers. The Old Cynic is back with Boobus Americanus and California attorneys.  This blog post discusses California attorney who have that fancy law degree but not much gray matter between their ears.  In other words they are either a a chickens*** attorney themselves or the cases they have are a chickens*** cases.  I should say chicken manure but I cannot help myself.

As long time readers are aware, I have worked for many years in the legal field in California and

worked with quite a few attorneys and other legal professionals.  This blog post discusses my

recent experience with two licensed California attorneys.

The first attorney e-mailed me and requested a quote from me to work on a probate cases.  The

signature at the bottom of their e-mail stated that they are not only a licensed attorney in

California, they are also licensed as an architect in both California and Texas. They are also a

licensed California real estate broker as well as a California notary public.  Sounds impressive

does it not?

I should have known this attorney was not the type that I would want to work with when they

asked me if I would agree to take a percentage of their fee once the Court approves their fee. That

is not legal and is specifically prohibited by the Rules of Professional Conduct that govern

California attorneys.  But as I could use the business I responded to their e-mail.

The estate was rather small so I quoted them two prices, the first for an easy probate for small

estates and a higher price for a standard probate.  I also informed them that a probate referee

would have to appraise the estate property and would charge a fee for that.  Their response was,

"How much does this probate referee charge?  How long will this take?  Does he get paid up

front or at the end?  The estate has little cash and no income."

Jeez talk out a chicken**** case! This person has all these degrees and is taking on a case from the “bottom of the barrel”.

I e-mailed them back and told them that based on their latest e-mail that I was not interested in

working on the probate case and suggested that they find someone else. I never heard back.

The second attorney was the latest one.  They stated that they wanted to respond to a petition for 

confirming a biding arbitration award that their company received the day before. The attorney

who studied law at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California (Yes folks I do

some checking on every attorney I work with. I learned the hard way what happens when you

don't) informed me that they did not want to spend their time on it. They also stated that while

they were “ licensed to practice in California, but really I manage a boutique residential real estate brokerage   so I should not be litigating”.

They added that they wanted to “petition to vacate or correct the arbitration award and also wanted to cross-complain for libel and slander, tortious interference with contractual relations, etc .”

They further stated that, “There are several "issues" with the Petition  most notably, that it names "_________________ , LLC, a California limited liability company" when in actuality we are _________________, a California Corporation I read your blog about specific demurrer and still don't know if that mistake is grounds for anything.”

They stated at the end of the e-mail, “Thoughts, pricing, timing.”

I e-mailed them back and told them that without more information I could not quote them a price and asked them when and where the arbitration hearing was held, the amount of the award and did they attend the hearing. I received no response at all.

My God give me a break. This person has been a licensed attorney in California for over 15 years and went to a big name law school. And they are stating things that a layperson would be stating.  And they expect me to respond in some way with such little information.

Talk about a chickens*** attorney. For the life of me I still cannot say which one of these attorneys is the bigger chickens*** ! And believe me folks when I tell you that there are many attorneys out there just like these two examples.  That is the scary part!!

Stay tuned. More to come on Boobus American, not only as attorneys but in all aspects as well.

Boobus americanus as attorneys, part three

Hello again loyal readers. The Old Cynic is back with Boobus Americanus as attorneys, part three.  As I mentioned in parts one and two, I have worked for many years in the legal field here in California and worked with quite a few attorneys. Some good ones to be sure. But I have also worked with some real “winners”.

Let me begin with some examples. 

This attorney I will call “Cakewalk”. This guy was something else. He actually worked in insurance defense but he fancied himself as a “litigator.” He was definitely anything but.

I worked on one case where someone had asked for a restraining order against a client, when the client and the attorney showed up at the hearing, the other party did not show up.  So the judge granted their request for attorney fees for having to defend against the charges and appear in Court when the other party did not show up. The judge awarded something like $2,000.00 or so in attorney fees against the party who did not show up. He then prepared a proposed order for the Judge to sign in which he included wording such as” “The Court finds that so and so filed frivolous charges against blank” and similar statements Needless to say the judge did NOT say that and the proposed order was not signed for over a month. When we checked with the attorney service as to why the order had not been signed, they checked with the clerk who works for the judge who told them the judge would not sign it because of the wording that Cakewalk included. When I deleted the wording the order was signed within a week or so.

This guy was something else.  It is my opinion that he was in an unhappy marriage as there was one secretary there who was shall I say, “Intelligence challenged.” In other words folks she was a ditz. She could not even spell simple words correctly! She once took over 6 weeks to contact a client about something important, yet when I had to use her computer for something I could not help but notice that she had downloaded the latest Christmas them screen saver for her computer. When another attorney and I were discussing her, Cakewalk came into the office and said simply, “She has big tits.”  And that was true. But I would rather work with someone who knows what they are doing. If I want to see big breasts I can visit a girlie bar just a few miles away where I can ogle to my heart’s content and I do not have to pretend I am not ogling. What can I say I’m an old fashioned kind of guy.

Cakewalk was like the pompous drunk in that he attracted bad clients like poop attracts flies.  He had one that owed him around $30,000.00 and he was still doing work for them.  And the cases they had were in the words of another attorney who worked with Cakewalk at the time, “dead bang losers.”

One afternoon, the client who owed all that money was in my office for something, Cakewalk came in and started talking tough to him in front of me saying that he needed to be paid something like $8,000.00 or he would not be able to keep working for the client.  If memory serves me correctly the clients would up filing a bankruptcy and I doubt Cakewalk got paid much of what he was owed. Another client he used to have was under indictment from the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Stay tuned. More to come on Boobus American, not only as attorneys but in all aspects as well.