Contact Info
I do quality work and your satisfaction is important to me.  I am committed to serving you in a responsible and professional manner.  As my client I will always uphold my Ethical Duties to you.  But even greater, you are someone that has placed their trust in me and I will not let you down.
Lack of Communication

You might guess that the number one complaint that consumers have about their lawyer is the lack of communication.  To be fair, many lawyers are managing so many clients and different aspects of each case that they don't have time to call their clients with routine updates on the progress of their case--they really don't intend to let their clients down in this regard.  But even so, there is a valid reason why this is reported as the number one complaint each year.  Many lawyers' ideas of regular communication is the issuing of their billing statements. They expect their clients to understand from the itemized bill just what work they have been doing for them.

This is not effective communication in my book.  To begin with, I deliberately don't take on a lot of clients because I want to give each one very personal attention.  I want you to understand from the beginning how your case will progress and to know each step along the way to reach the goal.  Because of the way I work, I am always reachable. You don't have to go through a secretary or receptionist to get a hold of me or to leave me a message on my voicemail.  I will return your calls, yes, but even better I will keep in regular touch with you via the phone and e-mail, even if it is just to apprise you of our progress.  The above complaint should never be a problem between us and if you ever feel that I am not doing an adequate job of keeping you informed, please call it to my attention.

Rudeness of Staff, Profanity, Unprofessionalism

I don't have any staff other than the translators and other persons that occassionally work for me so the above will never be a problem.  I will always be professional and extend to you the courtesy and respect that you deserve.

Returning Client's Files

A lawyer is obligated to return your client file to you upon request.  I will always return your file to you via registered mail or in person within 24 hours of receiving your request.  Please Note: The request must be made to me personally, not left as a voicemail message, either in writing or orally.

Terminating Representation

Lawyers are your at-will employees. (Remarkable thought isn't it!)  Subject to any ethical duties that I may have, I will terminate my representation of you immediately upon receiving your written request to do so.  If you wish to end my representation of you and you inform me of this orally, I will send you a confirming memo and my representation of you will terminate upon your receipt of it.

Fees, High-Costs, Bill Confusion, Mishandling of Money etc.

This is a huge area of complaints against lawyers and a major reason why some lawyers are disciplined or lose their license.

My legal services are very affordable so I don't expect that you would have anything to complain about regarding my fees.  Further, I maintain a client trust account and process all receipts, payments, withdrawals and deposits in accord with the rules and regulations upon such client trust accounts.  The basic mechanics of this are spelled-out explicitly in our written Fee Agreement.
1. You are Entitled to the TRUTH

Sadly, law school often spoils most lawyers understanding that there is often TRUTH and black and white distinctions in the world.  Through semantics and logic-chopping their naive notion that the law is dedicated to discovering or serving truth is belittled and eventually suppressed. The job of an advocate representing a client, they are taught, is not to serve truth, but to represent the client by controlling the definition of what is relevant, emphasizing helpful facts, de-emphasizing less helpful facts, arguing for favorable legal constructions, and so on everyone involved in the process has a different idea about what is true and relevant.

Recognizing that bending reality, without breaking it, is what lawyering is often about, it should be no surprise that some lawyers have a hard time turning off these truth-twisting mechanisms when they deal with their own clients instead of opponents. Unlike relationships with opposing counsel, courts, and other outsiders, the lawyer's relationship with the client must, however, be totally, unconditionally, even abjectly, truthful and honest.

I will always tell you the truth, even if it is not what you want to hear.

2. You are Entitled to COURTESY and RESPECT

As I suggest above, many client complaints could be avoided if lawyers would simply treat their clients with common courtesy and respect. Being late for scheduled appointments, failing to return phone calls, failing to keep the client abreast of developments in the case or transaction, and other discourtesies are routine for many lawyers.

I never want to give you the impression that my time is more valuable than yours!  I also never want to callously ignore your fears, disappointments, and confusion.  Furthermore, I never want to act as though I am superior to you or make you feel inferior or less intelligent.  I believe that lawyers who take themselves so seriously are often attempting to hide incompetence or inexperience. Pompous, arrogant lawyers are not better lawyers.

I approach my represenation of you recognizing that I work for you.

3. You are Really in CONTROL

As an agent of the client, the lawyer is legally under the client's "control."  Many lawyers forget that.  Of course, you rely upon me to know what to do to help you and to perform my job, so as your attorney I may exercise decision making over a number of aspects of your representation. This is a balance between us.  As the client, you must still depend upon me for advice.  Even though you are really in control, I am not permitted to allow you to override or ignore my own judgment or ethical and professional responsibilities.  This may mean that I will not always tell you what you want to hear.  I may even discourage you from litigation or a proposed course of action.  In some circumstances, if we cannot agree and you desire me to do something that I am unable to do, I will have to end the representation.

4. You are Entitled to COMPETENCE

Lawyers are ethically required to provide competent representation and to admit to a client when they cannot.  As you can see from my Legal Services pages, as a general solo-practitioner, I offer a variety of legal services.  I have varying experience and ability in each area.  If I can competently represent you in your situation I will.  If I cannot represent you effectively then I will refer you to another attorney who can. 

Additional notes about competence.  Competence is difficult for clients to assess. Clients are fooled by such things as high hourly rates, media reputation, and firm size. Since the lawyer sets his own rate (and discounts are common), a lawyer's standard hourly rate is a poor indicator of competence. Some lawyers with impressive credentials and experience also have lower overhead, less lavish lifestyles, and more modesty. You can be sure that a lawyer who thinks she is the best in town is very likely to be among the most expensive hourly rates correlate more closely with ego instead of competence. Reputations of lawyers, especially public or media reputations, are also unreliable indicators of the quality of their work. The media rarely understands legal questions so the lawyers it anoints as pillars of the legal community are more likely to be its intellectual stumps. Finally, law firm size correlates with bill size but, perhaps surprisingly, not necessarily with competence. Firm size seems instead to dilute experience and reward mediocrity, indecision, and procrastination.

5. You are Entitled To My ATTENTION

Giving you attention requires a lawyer to take the initiative in handling the matter. Ethical rules require prompt attention to a client's matter. By agreeing to represent the client, a lawyer implicitly guarantees that she has the time to handle it and will give it proper attention. These ethical minimums are too often breached by lawyers who refuse to turn any paying work away, but who cannot keep up with their workload, either because of poor work habits, over-commitment, or inefficiency.

To begin with, I do not take on a lot of clients at a time so that may give each my personal attention.  I will make sure that your case is moving forward, that is my job.

6. You are Entitled To LOYALTY

Lawyers agree that they owe clients loyalty; this is part of their duty as an agent and fiduciary. Moreover, ethical rules prohibit conflicts of interest, which is supposed to guarantee loyalty. But lawyers often disagree on what sort of things are conflicts of interest in representing a client.  There are those obvious things that fall within the ethical rules and then there are those things that while they do not mandate the "duty to disclose" to the client and to obtain a written waiver, they would still make the attorney less effective in handling the matter.

I will not bandy about such fine line distinctions.  I will go beyond the ethical minimum in my representation of you and will disclose to you anything that may be a conflict or that may effect my representation of you.  For me the Duty of Loyalty means always placing your interests first.  Whenever there is some doubt or an "in-between" area, I will resolve it in your favour.
One of the major advantages that a solo-practioner has over a law firm is that I am aware of potential conflicts of interest.  There are no other attorneys or divisions of the firm that have worked or are working for a competitor, opponent or that have some other conflict of interest.

7. You are Entitled to EFFICIENCY

There are not any hard ethical or professional rules that require efficiency.  That is probably why so many lawyers are extremely inefficient!  But efficiency, in terms of achieving acceptable quality at minimum cost, is the highest priority for cost-conscious clients. Even clients less concerned about cost should be concerned about efficiency because inefficient counsel may also be disorganized, confused, or inattentive to the things that matter.

I will always strive to be efficient in my representation of you.  If I happen to be inefficient, I will make sure that you are never penalized for it either by billing you for such inefficiency or by it harming you in some other way.

For your information, I use technology and automation to a high-degree in my practice.  I use past work-product as modeling for new work.  Most of my work is done on a Flat-Fee basis because I believe that billing on an Hourly Rate basis is not a good incentive for efficiency. 

Since, I am a solo-practioner, family man, business owner, and volunteer among other things, it is my constant goal to find the most elegant solution to your problem and to work as efficiently as possible.  Unlike working at a law-firm, I am rewarded by completing the work for you as soon as possible.

8. You are Entitled to a BUDGET

I find it remarkable that this is such a foreign concept for many attorneys.  Some lawyers try to excuse providing a budget to their clients by claiming that neither the path nor the cost of legal matters can be predicted.  This is not true.  While there is always some variation, the general legal representation in a particular matter can and should be detailed to you by a good attorney.

With my practice you will receive a budget that incorporates our written Fair Written Agreement, the Overall Legal Analysis, including a step-by-step process of your case or transaction and a corresponding itemized list that will explain to you the cost involved.

As I issue you bills, these should be reconciled to the budget we have established.  Of course your legal budget will need to be updated as the situation changes and there may be the occasion wrinkle that effects a change.  I will always attempt to stick to the agreed upon budget as part of my overall quality commitment to you.

9.You are Entitled to a FAIR WRITTEN AGREEMENT

It is simple. When I begin representation of you, we will enter into a Fair Written Agreement that will clearly explain in plain-language our mutual expectations, including this bill of rights, our Fee Agreement, and other aspects of the representation.

I believe that a reasonable agreement, one that is fair to both sides and accurately describes what the parties expect of one another, is not a tool for taking advantage of one another, but for confirming, in a legally enforceable way, those expectations. Its greatest value is not its enforceability, however, but the peace of mind it brings to both of us.

10. You are Entitled to REASONABLE BILLS

You are entitled to prompt, understandable and accurate bills.

Some law firms have systematically "padded" their bills in plain sight is by turning what used to be overhead or clerical time, that was not billed to clients, into billable profit centers. Thus, paralegals, clerks, or word processors bill up to $100 per hour to make copies, file papers, or type, which legal secretaries used to do for "free" as part of the firm's overhead. By giving these new staff members a different title and a billing rate, they become profit centers instead of expenses. In some legal bills, twenty-five percent or more of the dollars being billed come from these non-lawyer timekeepers.

I do not have any such staff padding my bills.  All work is performed by me so you know from the outset what you are paying for.
Main Page     Legal Services     Communications Services     Special Projects
California Business
&
Professions Code

§6068 (a) through (h) Duties of Attorney

It is the duty of an attorney to do all of the following:

(a) To support the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state.

(b) To mainain the respect due to the courts of justice and judicial officers.

(c) To counsel or maintain such actions, proceedings, or defenses only as appear to him or her legal or just, except the defense of a person charged with a public offense.

(d) To employ, for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to him or her such means only as are consistent with truth, and never to seek to mislead the judge or any judicial officer by an artifice or false statement of fact or law.

(e) To maintain inviolate the confidence, and at every peril to himself or herself to preserve the secrets, of his or her client.

(f) To abstain from all offensive personality, and to advance no fact prejudicial to the honor or reputation of a party or witness, unless required by the justice of the cause with which he or she is charged.

(g) Not to encourage either the commencement or the continuance of an action or proceeding from any corrupt motive of passion or interest.

(h) Never to reject, for any consideration personal to himself or herself, the cause of the defenseless or the oppressed.
In addition to the simple and understandable Fee Agreement, my billing statements are clear and comprehensible.  The billing statement will plainly explain what work I have done for you and the costs to you in accord with our Fee Agreement.  I will never charge you or take a fee for something that I have not done. In fact, if a lawyer does that he or she has breached their ethical duty to you.

Delay or Neglect

Sometimes lawyers can fail to act soon enough in a matter that it actually causes you serious harm one way or another. This is a breach of a lawyer's duty to you.  Because I have only a limited number of clients at a time, this will never be a problem. I find too that by keeping in constant communication with you, it is impossible to neglect your case.

Misrepresentation

Sometimes lawyers tell their clients that they have done something or taken some action when they actually haven't.  This is a breach of a lawyer's duty to you.  I will never tell you that I have done something when I haven't.  Again, I find good, clear and constant communication helps to avoid this problem.

Conflict of Interest

Your lawyer is supposed to be on your side and only on your side.  That means he or she should not be representing someone who is against you in the legal matter, unless both  you and the other side have agreed to it. I will always strive to avoid any conflict of interest both in representation and from a personal standpoint as well.  Any time there may potentially be a conflict, I will clearly explain it to you, set it in writing for you to understand and keep for your records and then let you decide whether the conflict will prevent me from representing you. If I feel the conflict is too great then I will not accept representation of you and will refer you to another attorney.