Complaint Review: Tully & Rinckey LLC

Yep, you guessed it...incompetent (Junior) Atty's thinking they know what they're doing.  Their "advanced" Consult Fees are unethical.  IF I'm going to Hire THEM as my "employee" then I'm not PAYING THEM before I hire them.  They have to show me their credentials of what they know and HOW they're going to present my case.  

This law firm represented me in a racial discrimination/retaliation case before the EEOC(Federal Sector) in Chicago. This firm is concerned more about, the self- promotion of their law firm through their website, various media outlets, i.e., the Washington Post, Washington Business Journal, The Chamber, Politico, Fed-Times, CNN, Military Times and participating in an Army 10-miler expo and making money off of their clients than they are about defending the rights of their clients. This firm has lost focus and gotten off the task of providing competent legal services for their clients. The attorneys assigned to my case lacked courage/court room presence and were afraid to speak up before my Agency/the EEOC Administrative Judge (AJ) and aggressively defend my case. The attorneys were unprofessional, incompetent, lacked integrity, did not possess the necessary skills to persuasively argue my case and charged excessive legal fees. I was billed for information I provided and research I conducted that they should have completed. Twice they used a tactic of assigning a junior attorney to my case. These junior attorneys increases their billable hours by calling me basically to rehash facts that had already been discussed with the senior attorney assigned to my case. I confronted one of the junior attorneys about this and he became angry and hung up the phone. The lawyers seem to forget that they are employed by the client and should acknowledge the client's recommendations as to what direction the case should go. The firm represents themselves as knowledgeable about federal government EEOC matters yet the attorney for my case was "clueless" and did not know who to contact at the EEOC to find out what AJ would be assigned to my case when the original AJ left the EEOC to become a U.S. Magistrate. Please check your invoices/ court filings for errors. Twice, I was billed for services that were rendered to another client! The firms lawyers also misrepresented the cost of my legal fees to the EEOC AJ reporting that my fees were approximately $40K more than what I actually owed , chose to ignore and not address/report the unprofessional conduct/bias of the EEOC AJ assigned to my case (as the lawyers code of ethics requires them to do) because they may have to appear before this AJ again on another case. The lawyer stated that he did not want to be involved in an investigation regarding the AJ in this matter. In July 2010, I informed the junior attorney that as a result of the pre-hearing telephone conference with the hostile/biased EEOC AJ , I decided that it would be unproductive to proceed to hearing. It was then that the junior attorney said that there was "Money on the table for my legal fees!" Meaning, that the Agency was willing to settle and pay my legal expenses. This did not make sense. I waited another four weeks to hear about settlement results with negative results . In August 2010, I became so frustrated with the lawyers at Tully & Rinckey's incompetence/lack of interest in my EEOC case, lack of candor and the fact that I had limited financial resources that I requested that the firm voluntarily withdraw my case before the EEOC AJ. In the end, after 2 years I paid Tully and Rinckey PLLC approximately $80K of my hard earned savings. Just imagine what they would have charge me if my case was in federal court. They couldn't even negotiate a basic settlement, which should have been their first order of business. If you are looking for competent counsel to represent you before the federal sector of the EEOC you will do better going with another firm. Someone should investigate the practices of how this firm bills it's clients. Not recommended!